


selfish/less

by cosmical_soda



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Carbonite, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Except Luke, F/M, Fights, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Guilt, Hair Braiding, Han Solo Needs A Hug, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Wedge Antilles/Luke Skywalker, Jedi Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa Needs a Hug, Light Angst, M/M, Mentioned Lando Calrissian, Nightmares, POV Leia Organa, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Sad Leia Organa, Scars, Serious Injuries, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Smuggler Han Solo, everyone is awful at feelings, hes friend shaped & trying his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmical_soda/pseuds/cosmical_soda
Summary: One way or another, it would have to end. But did it have to be like this?She remembered the past weeks, how they had passed too quickly for her to remember most of the days. She remembered the nights, though. The nights were anything but quick, anything but routine. She had always loved the night, and perhaps now she loved it even more.Did she love it more for who she had spent it with, or for how she had spent it? Would anything ever be the same for her after this, or would everything as she knew it be smeared with engine grease fingerprints, fogged up and smudgy and all out of place in a world that had once been pristine?Those halting thoughts were what answered the question for her. Yes, she thought. Yes, like this.They were in too deep for things to end any differently.
Relationships: Chewbacca & Han Solo, Chewbacca & Leia Organa, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Luke Skywalker & Han Solo, Wedge Antilles/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia ruminates on what is and what isn't when it comes to her relationship with Han. They're both awful at communication, but out of the both of them she is marginally worse. This causes their goodbye to turn into something horrible.

Leia had grown up being taught to mind her temper. How to smile and nod, how to grit her teeth and bite her tongue and swallow onslaughts of anger that threatened to unleash themselves through words she wished she could say, words she had been told were more often than not better left unsaid.

She knew of secret languages spoken by diplomats, languages spoken through the hardness of eyes and twitching fingers and tightly pursed lips. Leia knew compromise, she knew sacrifice, she knew commitment. She knew sleepless nights, she knew resilience when staring into the face of evil, she knew of a greater good that was only whispered about in the dark of night, over the dimmest holograms and commlinks with the securest encryption that her father could afford. 

She had been born- rather, _adopted_ \- into this role. She was raised to follow in the footsteps of her father, who had died a Rebel leader and spent the last twenty years of his life grooming the perfect replacement for the Alliance to fall back on in case such an incident ever occurred.

It wasn't as awful as her droning inner monologue made it sound. They hadn’t taken her for the sole reason of having an heir or for the Alliance. Leia knew that both her father and mother had loved her, regardless of the blood they didn't share. She was their daughter first, princess of a planet that was no more third, or maybe fourth… future Rebel leader was listed much, much further down the list. But that didn’t mean that she was not made well aware of what her parents were involved in from the very beginning, and how she tied into it all. She was made to accept each new duty with grace and let nobody know how tiring it could be at times.

So, in a way, Leia envied Han Solo.

Would she ever let go of this to _be_ Han Solo? To be able to move from place to place with such ease, and not care what you left behind or who you left with it?

Of course not… no matter how tempting it sometimes sounded. Responsibility was so deeply ingrained in her by that point that it turned her stomach to think of abandoning something that so many people had lived and died for, something that she had invested so much of herself into that she’d be killing a part of herself by withdrawing from it- or, at least, more so than she’d be killing by staying with it.

For the love of the gods, she couldn’t understand how Han did it. Just up and leave at the drop of a hat, whenever he pleased, and let nobody have any say in it except himself. What must it feel like to feel that guiltless, to have nothing to commit to but yourself? Leia, no matter how long or hard she wondered, could never figure out if it made his lifestyle sorry or heavenly. But yes, at the end of the day she envied the scoundrel, simply because he had something she would never be able to attain.

Han had always confused her. When they'd first met, she thought she’d had him all figured out. Rescuer indeed! He had no compassion for others, no empathy in him. Money was all he cared about, and he had never let them forget it, either.

Not to mention that he'd kept throwing her now worthless titles in her face. His ' _Your Worshipfulness_ 's and ' _Your Highness_ 's- it had only made her hate him more and more than she already had. Did he know about the churning nausea that she had to fight down whenever he addressed her like that? Those titles meant nothing anymore. Once upon a time they had, but not anymore.

Just when she _thought_ she had him figured out, he seemed to change, which only served to irritate Leia more. He seemed to become kinder, and he had the nerve to let it show in his actions. She'd rebuffed him, of course, when he'd first started doing this. How could someone go from being such a bastard to acting as if they cared? She’d wanted him to keep acting like an asshole so that she had a proper reason to hate him. And besides, Leia didn't want Han Solo to care about her. She wasn't sure just how much of a low her life would have to reach for her to need Han’s- of all people- emotional presence in her life.

Leia supposed that she had finally reached that low, except it didn’t feel like a low at all.

They had settled into a sort of domestic routine, and Leia might have been satisfied- dare she say, content? _Happy_?- if not for the fact that she knew it wouldn’t last.

It was twisted was what it was. It was sick. It was a middle finger from the universe in the cruellest way imaginable, and it came in the form of dinner with four every night, and long after Luke would leave with a wave and seemingly darker circles under his eyes each day, she would stay. 

It came in the form of her and Chewie alternating in washing the dishes because Han did the cooking, so it was only fair.

In the form of the both of them choosing to remain at the table hours after even Chewie had turned in. 

In the form of Han eventually showing her to his cabin, late into the night but never late enough, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he offered her his bed, saying he’d sleep just the same on the floor.

In the form of her ignoring his attempts at being chivalrous and pulling a blanket around both of them in his bed, doing nothing but sleeping, and, as a matter of fact, sleeping better than she had since Alderaan.

In the form of him hugging her and holding her and crooning in a language unfamiliar to her when she would wake up, shaking and screams halfway tumbling out of her lips, and never mentioning it again afterwards.

In the form of being there in the morning.

In the form of being friendly, sharing laughter as easily as they’d grown accustomed to sharing beds and meals and each other’s company.

And so the cycle repeated.

Leia had tried to run from it. Oh, she had _tried._ Because she knew where his loyalties lied (with no one except himself and Chewie), because she knew he would be leaving (this was her revolution, not his). She’d fled the Falcon in the early hours of the day, not even a few hours after finding solid sleep, and made her way back to her own cold barracks, empty save for the standard Alliance-issue nondescript furniture. She didn’t fall back asleep after that, but it was worth it, she’d thought, to save herself from growing attached to a person whose agenda had nothing to do with her own.

One day, after many days of falling asleep in his bed and getting up from her own, she’d tried to leave, and Han’s arms had tightened around her middle. His breathing had been warm against her neck, his voice soft and sweet and everything she’d come _not_ to expect from Han Solo.

He’d asked her to stay, words bleary with something that was too fretful to have been sleep and yet too exhausted to have been wakeness. She’d opened her mouth to say _no_ , _no she couldn’t, she couldn’t do this to herself and to him, he knows he’s leaving so what kind of a foolish game is he playing_ \- and then he’d said the word that had frozen the words in her throat.

 _Please_ , he’d said, chin dipping down to rest in the crook between her shoulder and neck. Leia had found herself unable to say no and face the consequences that it would bring the next day and the days following.

She’d stayed, and was suffering for it, because Han was leaving- for _real_ this time, just as he said he was going to for months now.

He was leaning in her doorway, hunched over slightly so as not to hit his head on the top of the frame.

"Figured I'd come say goodbye, uh, alone, I guess. You know, just the two of us. Just came from Luke’s too,” he added, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Well, Princess, I guess this is it. It’s been fun, but you know how it is…”

She stared at him passively, channeling most of her energy into keeping her expression neutral. His fingers were drumming against the white wall, creating a rhythmic tapping that was akin to the beating of a drum. 

“I suppose it is. Goodbye, Han.” She turned back to her work, hoping and not hoping at the same time that she’d hear retreating footsteps- walking, _running_ \- and the asthmatic engine of the Millennium Falcon taking off into the sky, jumping to lightspeed, going into hyperspace and coming out somewhere far, far away, taking a chestnut-haired, hazel-eyed scoundrel with no ties and no attachments with it.

“Why, Princess Leia, I always knew you had a way with words, but this is impressive, even for you!” His voice dripped with sarcasm and something hurting, and Leia reminded herself that he was _deciding_ to leave to prevent herself from sympathizing with him. He did have a pretty valid reason, as far as reasons went, but it was _his reason_ and _his_ _choice_.

“What else is there to say? You’re leaving and I’m bidding you farewell,” she replied, not daring to turn around just yet.

“I just- ah, forget it. I don’t know what I expected, honestly,” he said coarsely, like sandpaper, words so harshly accentuated with the thick bite that Corellians had to their tongue that Leia knew, _knew_ , she’d be adding yet another item to the mental list of things she would be unable to forget about Han Solo. 

“Don’t be angry with _me_ , Han,” she said coldly. “You’re the one who’s leaving. Even though the Alliance has recognized you as a valuable asset to our cause, not once, not twice, but multiple times. This is of your own accord.”

“Not this again.” She could practically _see_ Han shaking his head, his unkempt mop of hair swaying with the movement. “Even if I were in it for your rebellion, I couldn’t stay until I pay back my debt to that damn Hutt. I’m as good as dead as long as I stay here, with every bounty hunter in the galaxy after me.”

“You hold yourself to too high of an esteem, Captain Solo.” Leia snorted, still pretending to be busy skimming notes from some diplomatic meeting that had happened over a week ago. “I can assure you that there must be a bounty hunter or two, at the very _least_ , who have better things to concern themselves with than some scoundrel who doesn’t stay in the same spot long enough for anyone to be able to keep tabs on him half of the time.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so, Your Highnessness. Increases the chances of me being able to stay alive long enough to get the bounty off my head and move on to other things!”

“Other things? _Other things_?” Leia slammed down her stack of papers and turned on her heel to stare him down, height difference be damned to all hells. “Will other things sleep in your bed, too, Han? Will you ask other things to please stay until the morning when they’re only leaving in the first place because they know it’s only a matter of time until you’re going to be doing the same damn thing?”

“Well pardon me, _Your Most High and Mighty Worship_. I’m sorry that my debt interferes with your having someone to cook for you and to share a damn bed with.”

Han hurled the words at her with such contempt it almost reminded her of the way they used to bicker, except she’d never heard his voice filled with such unbridled, angry sardonicism as it was now- or at least, never heard it directed at her. 

She felt as if a grounding shock was shooting through her body. She couldn't remember the last time he had addressed her like that. Lately, it was always either 'sweetheart' or 'Princess', although he hadn't missed the chance to call her a Wookie once after seeing her hair loose and matted after she'd accidentally slept on it. The condescending titles had long since trickled out of his extensive list of nicknames for her. Hearing it once more, especially spoken like that, was like a confirmation of something she’d been subconsciously fearing for longer than she’d like to admit.

_This is what you and Han are. This is what you always will be._

He'd never given her a reason to spend more time than necessary on his ship, to sleep in his bed. He'd simply told her and Luke both one day that since Rieekan had informed the whole base that heating was down and he knew the personal quarters would be colder than normal that they'd be staying on his ship until further notice, no questions asked. The Falcon did have its own heating and water systems, after all.

Further notice had come a week later. 

Luke had thanked Han for his hospitality and gone back to his own quarters. Leia should have done the same. She’d hesitated for the smallest moment after saying goodbye, and Han had noticed. 

She was about to leave when he'd caught her forearm, spun her back around, and fervently muttered that the gangway of his ship would always be down for her.

“ _And the kid, of course_ ,” he’d added hurriedly, in an attempt to maintain composure, but she'd gotten the message well enough.

He'd never been upfront about how or why, she realized. No reasoning. Just that one simple statement.

“Listen, Princess, I don’t know if you’re aware what happens to people who have a bounty on their heads, but let me be real with you- when you live a smuggler’s life, you _have_ to survive. You know why? Go on, give it a guess.”

Leia said nothing as she pressed her lips together in a thin line, trying to remember what she’d been taught. 

_Smile and nod. Grit your teeth. Bite your tongue, swallow your rage._

“Cause the alternative to survival is always something much, _much_ worse than death. And Jabba the Hutt doesn’t play games when it comes to his debts, so-” 

Looking back, it was those words that triggered what would happen next. Leia completely lost it in a way that would have made every practitioner that had ever tutored her in diplomacy roll over in their graves. 

She was exhausted from whatever this was. She'd so wanted to believe there was something else to Han Solo besides scoundrel, besides smuggler, besides everything he'd come to associate himself with. And for a while, she thought there was. 

She’d come to associate him with strong arms, warm embraces, adrenaline rushes, throwing your head back with belly laughter from some remark or the other. A flash of white as he grinned at her from a foot away, from across a room. The strangest, swooping fluttering low in her belly whenever he did so.

 _Soft eyes_. The softest godsdamned eyes you ever did see. When he looked at her, his gaze would relax, become almost tender. And there it would be again, that smile that, in its element, seemed to be reserved only for her.

A tiny part of her that hoped it was reserved only for her.

A low aching deep within her whenever she dwelled on these things, because she knew it was only temporary. She knew it wouldn’t last.

Gods, what she would give if it would. But it wouldn’t- it _wasn't._ She knew it. Han knew it. And yet, here he was- saying he had to leave, and doing everything except leaving.

Leia allowed herself to let go of what she’d been brought up knowing, just this once.

She met his eyes for the first time since he had come to her and was taken aback by the ferocity she saw in them. Those hazel eyes- at any point either hardened and gleaming or soft and smiling and there was no in between- blazing with something vicious that she couldn’t for the life of her pinpoint.

She laughed in his face.

“You’re so full of it it would be funny if it weren't so sad.”

Now it was Han who looked taken aback.

“ _Excuse_ _me_?”

“Did I stutter, Captain Solo?”

Her mother had once told her of an age-old proverb- ‘angry men started wars and angry women finished them.’ A young Leia had looked at her, brows drawn together, and asked _, “Is it true?”_

Her mother had thought for a minute. _"Sexist as it may sound, I personally believe it to be true. Of course, in history, many angry women have waged wars in the name of vengeance and violence and forgotten gods, and many angry men have also ended wars. However, I don’t believe this particular proverb applies to war between governments. It’s more of a… personal war, if you will._

 _“A_ personal _war?”_ Leia had wrinkled her nose _._

 _“Yes, and hopefully those wars will be the only ones you will ever have to fight. Leia, you will grow up to find men a strange species. Heaven knows I still don’t understand them.”_ She cast a wry but affectionate look at Leia’s father, who was dozing in his chair after returning from a week-long diplomatic meeting _. “They tend to be less vocal about what they feel. Anything bottled up for too long will eventually explode, and more often than not that’s what happens. So, in this way, angry men start wars. Anger is contagious- it spreads like a fire. It catches, especially to people that care about them. And that is why, starlight, women like you and I become angry, and are left to deal with the aftermath.”_

 _“But I don’t_ want _to deal with any man’s anger, Mama,”_ Leia had grumbled _. “Why should I have to?”_

 _“Often anger is rooted in love, or in fear. This, too, you will learn someday. And if you truly love someone, you would do anything it takes to keep from losing them- just as they would for you in return, I would hope.”_ Her mother broke off, tucking an unruly bit of loose hair behind Leia’s ear. “ _Oh, who am I kidding? They would have to. We all know that you can have quite the temper.”_

Leia had crossed her arms over her chest in indignance _. “So do you, Mama!”_

Her mother had laughed, a beautiful sound that Leia hoped would stay with her for the rest of her days. She remembered thinking, in the back of her mind, that she never wanted to forget what that sounded like. It was a sensation that never failed to ground her.

_“That is true. The secret to a long, prosperous marriage is to never be afraid to be a bit angry. Anger is good. You say in anger what you wouldn’t think to say in joy. So be angry once in a while, and keep your affections in mind in order to keep yourself in check.”_

Leia had always turned her nose up at that particular sentiment. But now, she understood it more than ever.

Was this war? Did it even hold a candle to all the atrocities that true war brought with it wherever it went? Maybe not in the literal sense, but if war was hell then this was war, because there was nothing more hellish in that moment than the way she had allowed this man to become capable of tearing her apart from the inside without him even realizing.

“How am _I_ full of it?” She heard him spit back, affronted. “ _I_ think you just can't accept that some things are beyond your control, Princess. ‘Course, I bet you’re used to snapping your royal fingers and getting your way.”

Leia inhaled deeply and spoke through gritted teeth.

“Leave.”

“What?”

“Prove me wrong, Captain. Leave. Right now. The door is open, you’re free to walk out. Get on your ship and go. Jabba the Hutt is such a huge threat to you, is he not? Your debts need to be repaid, don’t they? You have a price on your head, correct? You need to leave so badly?” 

She leaned in a little.

“Then _go._ I’m not stopping you.”

He looked stunned. It would have been funny to see him twitching slightly as if he were a protocol droid stuck between two actions, if not for the way Leia’s heart was pounding in her chest. She could tell he wanted to go, could see it in the tautness of the muscles in his neck and through the way one of his feet was planted firmly outside her door, but for whatever reason, he could not force himself to leave the way he so often claimed he needed to.

Leia allowed the seconds to slip by, not taking her gaze off of him. He stared down at the floor, an angry red creeping up his neck.

“Thank you,” she said finally, in a voice that was barely a whisper, “for proving to be true what I had hoped and prayed and wished on every star out there wasn't.”

“Which would be?” he asked bitterly, words all sharp edges and broken moulds, finally meeting her eyes.

For just the slightest moment his facade crumbled. Iit was so quick, she might not have caught it if she weren’t surveying him so intensely.

Leia had seen a lot in her short life. She’d witnessed death. Destruction. She’d resuscitated dying embers of rebellion that were threatened to be smothered by the sand that was the Empire. She’d been held captive and tortured by Vader himself, faced execution, watched her home planet be blown up, and everything she’d ever known with it. 

Her short life was filled with so much violence she was almost used to it, but that didn’t compare to what was behind his guise of indifference.

What had she seen that was so terrible when Han Solo met her eyes? 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

His face was a blank mask, eyes devoid of the rage that had consumed them minutes before. If he hadn’t been speaking to her mere seconds prior she would have swore that Han Solo was, in every sense of the word, dead. The rising and falling of his chest was almost unnoticeable. The only sign of emotion- of life- was, she noticed with surprise, an unfamiliar moist quality that his eyes had taken on. 

It was more frightening than any violence she had ever experienced before- why, she didn’t know, but it chilled her to the bone. This emptiness was so different from the savagery of a battlefield under fire, but gods, if it weren’t horrifying nonetheless… 

She had never seen Han Solo cry before. And, as they stood before each other, she realized that she didn’t _ever_ want to have to see him like that, she most definitely didn’t want to be the cause of it, and that if the circumstances were different she would do everything in her power to prevent it.

But the circumstances _weren’t_ different, and she had to end this one way or another, for both of their sakes. She was angry, and this… this was what her mama meant when she talked about angry people fighting wars. How dangerous the stakes were. And it _was_ war, but definitely not the kind she was familiar with. An entirely new one. A personal one.

One way or another, it would have to end. But did it have to be like this?

She remembered the past weeks, how they had passed too quickly for her to remember most of the days. She remembered the nights, though. The nights were anything but quick, anything but routine. She had always loved the night, and perhaps now she loved it even more.

Did she love it more for who she had spent it with, or for how she had spent it? Would anything ever be the same for her after this, or would everything as she knew it be smeared with engine grease fingerprints, fogged up and smudgy and all out of place in a world that had once been pristine?

Those halting thoughts were what answered the question for her. _Yes_ , she thought. _Yes, like this._

They were in too deep for things to end any differently.

“That you were exactly what I measured you up to all those years ago after you and Luke busted me out of the Death Star. A self-centered, half-witted asshole who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.”

“That’s not true,” he said, but it was automatic, as if he were refuting the statement on a knee-jerk reaction, with no fight behind it. Like the battle had already been lost, and with it the meaning for him. Like he'd given up defending himself to her even as he argued back, because that was what they _did._

They fought and she pushed him and he pushed her back harder, somehow managing to pull her back in when he had pushed too far. Always at odds yet always in sync.

They had always been a team. She hurt and hurt and hurt some more for both of them, even through her anger, because it felt unnatural to feel anger such as this for someone she had only ever pretended to truly be angry at. She hurt. 

And still, like the monster she felt she was and the diplomat she had been trained to be, she stuck to her guns.

“It is. If you cared about any of us you’d have left a long time ago-” 

_And come back as soon as possible, because we need_ _you, Luke and I-_

“-and never dared to show your face back at any Base you might ever chance across, you- you- _you-_ you _chose_ to become a smuggler! You chose this and you don’t get to drag the rest of us into _your_ damned predicament like we signed up for this too on that fateful day one idiotic Han Solo decided ‘ _hmm, I think I’m going to become a fucking glorified drug dealer! That’s definitely what I want to do with the rest of my life_!'"

She knocked her papers off of the desk in her sudden flare-up with a great sweeping motion of her arms.

"You don’t get to make _us_ suffer the consequences of what the terms and conditions of your lifestyle entail!”

“You don't think I know that?” he snapped at her, voice dangerously close to breaking. “You don’t think I know that this whole fucking fool’s cause is constantly put a thousand times more at risk than it already is just because of my involvement with it? I know the lot of you take me for a fucking idiot, but really, _how much_ of an idiot do you take me for that you think I don’t know the obvious?”

Leia hesitated, but only for a second, already regretting her outburst. She could almost feel a weight on her shoulder, so familiar to the steady hand of her father, steadying her and willing her to stay calm. He would have been so disappointed to see her now… 

“That’s not _fair,_ Han. You know that’s not what I meant-” she tried weakly, but Han made an aggrieved noise.

“No, you know what’s not fair? That you go and say shit like that and then go and try to claim you didn’t mean _exactly_ what you said. Let me tell you, Princess, I certaintly don’t know you the best in the universe, but I know you well enough to know that when you say something like _that_ , _like_ that, then you sure as hells mean it. And for you to act like you didn’t for whatever godsdamned reason is what’s _unfair._ Well, I’m leaving now, don’t you worry! I’ll be out of the way, you’ll have Luke, and the two of you will be just _peachy_ together after I’m gone.” 

Han stepped out into the hallway, fast yet self-assured, staggering in his rush. He seemed to grow more and more manic by the second, struggling to keep it under wraps. The fight had escaped him, yes, but the mania hadn’t, the wild rush of adrenaline that fuelled screaming matches and punches and duels to the death. 

Only it was senseless, it was madness. It was everything except the righteous rage Leia had come to know and expect from the man whose motives were fuelled by the same innate mania that had beckoned him to turn back just in time to save Luke during Yavin, because he felt like he owed it to him to do so. It wasn't him. This was not her Han.

Leia bit the inside of her cheek. _No_ , _not_ yours, she chided herself. 

Personal grievances aside, she could not deny that that was the Han who had charmed most of the Base without even having to bat an eyelash. He was _good_ , and they all saw it in him, whether he wanted them to or not.

“Don’t you _dare_ drag Luke into this!” 

“Typical. You’d defend him to the last breath.” He fixed her with a look that resembled something like disgust.

“JUST AS I WOULD FOR YOU!” Han’s eyes widened momentarily, before he snapped them shut, creases forming in between his eyebrows and lining his forehead. “What in hells do you want from me?” she shouted, hands curling into fists from the frustration of it all. “This started because I didn’t give you some heartfelt speech about how your presence would be severely missed around the base? About how your presence would be severely missed by _me_? Is that it?”

“I don’t want anything from you, _Princess_.”

“It sure as fuck doesn’t seem like it! You come barging into my personal quarters, expect some huge fanfare in light of your farewell, get pissy and start insulting me for a routine that _you_ initiated- and when I call you out on it and try to figure out why you go Base Delta Zero for no reason at all! And then _I_ go Base Delta Zero too because I can't figure this out and you're getting more and more infuriating by the second, and suddenly it's all my fault?"

Han stared at her, eyes still blank- _still_ _wet-_ and lips curled into a sneer.

“You just love to assume you know it all, don’t you?”

Leia took a few deep, shuddering breaths in a sorry attempt to keep herself from lunging forward and decking him, or perhaps grabbing her blaster and nailing him. She did have impeccable aim, but lacked anyplace reasonable to properly dispose of a body.

“Well, sweetheart, it doesn’t matter anymore, because once I leave you won’t have to-”

"You see? This is exactly what I’m talking about! You keep saying how you need to go, how there's a price on your head and if you don't pay Jabba off you're a dead man, and you're still here! You refuse to leave while bitching about how you can't stay! So why don't you just stop making this difficult-” _for you, for me-_ “and GO?"

He semed to lose it. His face contorted and for a brief second Leia was scared that he might slap her. Instead, he did something she never expected.

" _BECAUSE I LOVE YOU_ ," he shouted back, each word that was punched out with such force suddenly struggling to find purchase in the vastness of the air, bouncing off the walls and rebounding. 

_Love you. Love you. Love you. You._

_You._

Leia stood there, stance still aggressive and fists still clenched, in stunned silence. She wasn't sure if she was really hearing those words, echo as they did in the almost empty room. They felt far away, distant, as if he were shouting them to her from opposite ends of a battlefield instead of from the hallway outside her quarters.

He crumpled suddenly, like he was being stuck with vibroblade inbetween his shoulder blades, and she knew he wished he could take the words back, that he regretted ever having uttered them at all.

"You," he repeated finally, voice strained, after a long moment had passed, begrudgingly offering explanation. "It was because of you that I couldn't make myself leave."

His _breath warming her neck as he shifted behind her- so natural, so comfortable, as if they’d been doing this all their lives, as if they could do this all their lives if they so wished. A singular whispered “_ please”- _so vulnerable, so pleading, so wanting._

“Every day I thought I would go. I thought I'd find a reason that outweighed my reason for staying, and I’d go. Pay off my debt, come back a free man, give up the smuggler's life- the whole shebang. I'd find you again. Join your damn revolution, because with someone like you at the head of it all… well, that's the farthest thing from a lost cause I could ever imagine." 

Leia found herself stepping away, backing up against the wall behind her. She felt like a deer in headlights, put on the spot. She’d anticipated every outcome to this scenario, save for this. Never this.

“It’s not worth it, alright? I hate this life. I hate all the terms and conditions and fine print. Leaving people behind. Hurting them. I chose to be a smuggler- I didn’t choose _this._ You gave me a reason to stick around. You were my reason- the most infuriating, stubborn, prissy reason ever- but my reason regardless. And you know what the worst part is? I didn’t hate anything about smuggling until I met you. It was when I realized that I couldn’t have both my old life and… and you… that I began to hate it. Because it deprived me of the one thing I wanted but couldn’t ever have. Not as long as I was still a smuggler. Maybe not even if I weren’t.”

He seemed to notice Leia’s silence and chuckled a little to himself.

“Yeah, I know. This sounds fucking pathetic even to me. You’re probably used to getting proclamations of undying love from princes that tuck in their shirts too tight and lords with their heads up their asses. I don’t even know if you’re buying into anything I’m saying, but ah, fuck, what does it matter? I've gotten my hands on a lot of things, because I bought or stole or begged or bartered for them, but you-" Han let out a bitter, reproachful bark of laughter that made Leia's chest hurt. "I couldn’t win you over with any of that. You were _untouchable_."

There was a time she'd thought Han Solo was guiltless. She'd envied him for it, for his ease of mind and, on an admittedly lesser scale, his almost disturbing lack of conscience. This Han, whose mind was now revealed to be wracked with compunction at almost all times, was not the Han she’d disillusioned herself into envying.

No, not ‘this Han’. The _real_ Han. The Han who’d found it impossible to hide the parts of himself he wished he could. The Han who’d instead disguised them with almost interchangeable. Han. Truly, genuine and authentic- _Han._

"And when I finally got you? When I woke up and it was with you next to me… it felt like I was on the top of the fucking world. Even if we didn't address exactly what it was or what it meant, I thought I had you, and that was enough for me… and who in their right mind would have willingly given that up?" He stared at her for a moment, nothing in his eyes, a deep sadness and resignation in his next words and a rueful smile playing on his lips.

"I’m a selfish man, sweetheart, always have been… and I’ve always wanted what I couldn’t have.”

He sounded so tired, so defeated. 

She wanted to say something. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him hard, slap him across the face for his idiocy, wanted to tell him off for putting her through every level of hell and agony rather than just speaking to her. Curse him to the ninth hell and back for letting it get this far.

Conversely, she also wanted to haul him up, hug him the way she ever only had when sleeping in his bed. She wanted to kiss him. Touch his forehead to hers and tell him to hurry and leave, be safe, come back to her in one piece. Apologize profusely for every awful thing she’d said to him.

She wanted to tell him that he could have her if he wanted, because Leia was angry, yes. Gods, she was so _fucking_ angry at him. But that didn’t matter at the moment, not in the slightest, because what was more- she was in love.

Gods, she wanted to tell him that she loved him too.

She opened her mouth but was rendered speechless. A squeak escaped her throat as she tried to form the words. _Just three words_ , that was all she needed. Her words never failed her in front of a roomful of corrupt senators or before a base full of rebels with stars in their eyes. Why, of all times, did it choose to now?

Han gave her one last rueful smile. He ran a hand through his hair, locked their eyes, tried for a smile. He straightened himself up and cleared his throat. Stepped back into the room, stood in front of her, took her much smaller hand in his.

“It’s been an honour, Princess Leia, to fight at your side. I've spoken enough, I know, but for what it's worth… you really did make me believe there was something worth fighting for in this universe. A greater good. And I hope… I hope that one day you can forgive me. For everything. May the Force be with you, and may luck be on your side.”

Leia drew in a sharp breath. Her thoughts became muddled with alarm. This was a second goodbye, wait, _no_ -

“For your sake and mine, I hope we never cross paths again.” His voice cracked at those final words. He let his lips ghost over her knuckles in some faint echo of a kiss, then promptly dropped it and spun on his heel, walking out of the room in five swift strides.

She heard retreating footsteps- walking, _running_ \- and maybe that’s what snapped her out of her stupor. She reached the hangar just in time to hear the engine of the Millennium Falcon turn over. She called his name once, clear and frantic, teetering on the verge of crazed, but it was lost to the wheezing and sputtering of the freighter's engine as it took off into the sky and jumped to lightspeed, to go into hyperspace and come out somewhere far, far away, taking a chestnut-haired, hazel-eyed scoundrel with one (1) tie and one (1) attachment with it. 

She found herself in Carlist’s office only moments later, all but begging him to contact Captain Solo and request that he return at once.

Rieekan looked at her with something like sympathy and shook his head, but asked a technician to attempt to page him anyway.

Leia closed her eyes. 

“We haven't been able to get a response, Princess,” she heard the tech say apologetically.

Carlist said something to her, but she didn’t hear. 

Her mother’s laughter rang in her ears and if she squeezed her eyes shut tightly enough, she swore she could almost feel a hand on her shoulder.

Almost.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years have passed. She's now General Organa, and Luke is Lieutenant Skywalker. And Han is... a free man.
> 
> Leia bonds with Luke, and he encourages her to make a decision that she can't convince herself to make herself.

It was a couple of years later, and not a day had passed where Leia's thoughts didn't linger to Han Solo in one way or another.

She had thrown herself into her work after he'd left, and as a result risen in rank until she was at the forefront of the Alliance, with Luke- her _twin brother_ , her _family-_ as her right hand man. 

Luke had matured since then. He was no longer the naive farmboy from Tatooine. He had become more serious, wired his body to attack on sight. He’d cropped his hair shorter but long enough to braid (something that he came to her for often) allowing only a small length of hair long enough for a Padawan braid to grow out in typical Jedi fashion, and, thank goodness, trimmed those ridiculous bangs out of his eyes. He’d duelled Vader, lost, and continued training tirelessly day in and day out, in the Dagobah System and on the Base. Went out flying whenever he could, to hone his skills. 

In a way Leia was proud of him. In a way she hated it, because what if he learned to fly _too_ well? What if one day he, too, took his ship and flew away? 

What if one day he, too, left her?

Leia suspected he knew that something had changed about her after Han left. It wasn't really _change_ , though. It was more as if the Falcon had taken some piece of her away with it that day, and she’d never been the same since. As if there were a gaping hole in her, one that had previously been filled by warm embraces and adrenaline rushes.

It had taken her a while to get used to the fact that Han was truly gone. The first time Luke came back from a run alone, Leia had met him in the hangar, looked around, brows furrowed, and asked, "Where're Han and Chewie?"

Luke's face had twisted up and Leia had remembered, suddenly, that they weren't here anymore, they hadn't gone on that mission because they were somewhere halfway across the universe, paying off a debt to a crime lord. Leia secretly suspected that they both cried a little when they returned to their quarters, although neither of them would ever admit it.

Ever the sentimental one, Luke kept many holos stored in his datapad. The day that Leia had told him the entirety of what had happened between her and Han the day he left, after they’d both had a few too many shots of cheap alcohol, courtesy of the Rogues, he had been eerily quiet. Then he’d pulled out his datapad, fumbled with it for a minute, and turned to show Leia the images that it projected.

Most of them were taken selfie-style after a mission or a run or a blockade. Others were taken by Luke, or by someone else. With each swipe of Luke’s finger, Leia’s urge to smack the datapad out of his hand had grown larger and larger.

Swipe.

A holo of her on Chewie’s shoulders in the kitchen of the Falcon, screaming and holding onto his furry head for dear life.

Swipe.

A holo of the three of them, faces sheened with sweat but victory in their grins, standing in front of the Falcon after a mission, Leia’s hair still done up in it’s elaborate style, Luke looking immensely pleased in his fancy boots, and Han already shrugging off his embroidered suit jacket and slipping his arms into his vest.

Swipe.

A holo Luke had taken of himself and an injured Han in the med bay, both pairs of eyes crinkling good naturedly in spite of the obscene gesture Han was making with his working hand from his bedridden position from one of the cots, Luke throwing up a peace sign, a smile stretched on both of their faces.

Swipe.

A holo of them with their arms thrown around each other in something that wasn't quite a hug, but close enough. Luke was in his bright orange uniform, Han in his threadbare vest, Leia in her thermal gear from Hoth, and Chewie- well, he looked like a walking carpet. It was, to Leia's knowledge, one of the only sophisticated pictures they had together.

Swipe, swipe, swipe- _stop_.

A holo of the four of them having dinner together on the Falcon, on one of those nights that seemed to be so long ago. Han was setting steaming platters of food down on the kitchen table, a towel thrown over his shoulder while Chewie was arranging the cutlery, mouth open in what must have been a particularly vicious sentiment in Shryiiwook as he scolded Han over something or the other, brandishing a butterknife at him to emphasize his point. Luke was setting down the water pitcher with one hand and glasses with the other, attempting to balance their thankfully empty plates on his head, face frozen in laughter. 

Leia remembered that holo. She’d taken it. She would have been lying if she said that she didn’t have two extra copies of it stored on separate hard drives, just in case something ever happened to the original. She remembered how she had opened up that holo the night Han had left, staring at it until her eyes hurt and trying to figure out where it had all gone wrong. 

She’d privately dubbed it her favorite photo of ‘her boys’. She used to joke that it was a photo that summed up their dynamic perfectly. Maybe that’s why it had hurt so much to look at it. Maybe that’s why she had put it away that night and never looked at it again.

She had taken the holopad from him and swiped passed it, blinking harshly. She didn’t expect for the next photo to be of her and Han, the latter with his elbow propped on her head as he grinned roguishly down at her. If looks could kill, holo-Leia’s glare would have ended holo-Han on the spot. Even so, the smile she had been trying so hard to suppress in the holo was, unfortunately, all too visible.

A tear trickled down Leia’s cheek as she stared at the old holo. Then another. And another. In what seemed like seconds she was full-on sobbing, with Luke’s arms wrapped around her in a comforting hold.

It was the damned alcohol taking it’s toll on her. Godsdamn it all, she should know better than to get drunk and talk about vulnerable topics.

“He told me one day he thought he might love you,” he’d said quietly, words slurring only slightly. “I told him- I told him he was officially the last one to know.”

Leia snorted out a laugh in spite of her tears.

“It was kind of beautiful, really… you never saw the way he- he looked at you when he thought nobody was watching. The day he left, when he stopped by in my room to say goodbye, he asked me to take care of you.” He hiccuped, and Leia was mildly impressed he’d managed to remain articulate thus far. “Made me swear that I'd protect you, no matter what the cost."

The words had hit her like a slap to the face.

Oh, she knew. She _knew_.

“I hate him,” Leia forced out. 

Luke looked at her, eyes blown wide with shock.

“ _I- hate- him_. I hate that stupid fucking nerf-herder and his stupid fucking ship, his stupid company and his stupid debt and his stupid cooking. I wish- I wish neither of you had ever rescued me to begin with-”

“You love him,” Luke said gently, with all the sincerity of someone drunk off their ass, which had only made Leia cry harder, because she knew he didn’t have the sense to lie in this state. It had taken her a long time to calm down, and she'd felt inexplicably worse afterwards. It went without saying that he was right. Leia hated herself for it, but he was right.

Luke never mentioned that night again, and Leia didn’t care if it was because he didn’t remember or just chose to remain silent about it. Either way, she was grateful. 

They both felt incomplete, to some degree, without Han and Chewie at the base alongside the rest of them. When you make friends as close as that, you don’t just automatically adjust to their absence. 

_Maybe you never learn to adjust,_ Leia thought numbly. _Maybe you just learn to live with the hurt, make it a part of you, so that it feels as if there had been something missing from you all your life…_

Today was not like any other day. Yes, there were the basics- routine maintenance at the base, sending a crew to scope out the remaining uncharted terrain of the new Rebel base, a couple of quick runs to get supplies, etc. But today, there also would also be a small squadron of ships going on a mission to sabotage a nearby Imperial fleet that just happened to be picking up their own shipments of supplies close by.

Leia happened to be leading this squadron. Normally she would have been back at the base, overseeing the operation from there, but Wedge Antilles had injured his back just days before while performing repairs on a bad engine in the hangar, they'd needed a replacement quick, and, well- she wasn't too bad of a pilot herself. So she'd volunteered.

Admittedly, she was a bit nervous. She didn’t lead missions like this often. At least Luke was in the squadron with her. The thought comforted her a bit. 

It wasn't a difficult mission. The Imps were wildly unprepared and they had flown in, undetected, and blown up the first two shipments before the Imps even realized what had happened. There were seven in total, each being unloaded from huge freighters. 

The element of surprise wore off quickly, though, and soon Imps were coming after them in cruisers, unrelenting. 

The squadron split up quickly afterwards. Leia had Luke and another pilot cover her as she charged her ship’s blaster and aimed.

Hot beams of laser flashed through the sky and landed upon their target, setting off a series of explosions.

“General, on your left! Fall out, I’ll cover for you,” Luke shouted over the comms. 

Leia veered right just in time to avoid heavy fire from an Imperial cruiser.

“One or two more well aimed hits should do it for that one, if you can manage it.” Leia let her fighter drop underneath the Imperial cruiser and come up from behind. With two short, precise blasts, the cruiser exploded into debris. Leia let out a relieved sigh, adrenaline shooting through her at a mile a minute.

“Please, General Organa, I blew up the Death Star. I think I can handle a single freighter,” Luke snorted. 

“Yes, but you had help then,” she answered without thinking, falling back into formation. 

A short silence, and Leia realized what she'd said. A pang of short lived fear struck her, and then a shot of red streaked across the velvety darkness and somehow managed to land _inside_ the freighter, and Luke’s triumphant yet shaky voice brought the comm to life again.

“I’ve improved a lot since then. How many more?”

Leia found it a little easier to breathe. 

"Three. One of them is a larger shipment, and by the way the Imps seem to be guarding it, it's important."

She thought for a few seconds, then rattled off a list of surnames as she swerved to avoid enemy fire.

Sparing a glance over her shoulder, she tried to keep her voice steady as she gave the orders for those fighters to attack the large freighter under her lead. 

"Wait, let me help you," Luke interjected.

"No, Lieutenant. The other half of the squadron needs a commanding officer to organize them so they can destroy the three remaining freighters."

She didn't have the luxury of waiting for a response before putting her plan into action, but out of the corner of her eye she saw him section off the squadron into two groups. His orders crackled and cut out since they were so out of range, but she could catch some of the commands he was issuing. 

She didn't have time to focus on what Luke was doing, though. She had a group of her own to lead, and every second was precious in battle. 

"Wenton, take Rissen and Wes and try to draw their fire away from us. Brehen, Kish, Ike and I will launch the attack on the freighter itself. The rest of you try and take down as many of those Imperial cruisers as you can."

Muttered acknowledgements filled the cockpit, and Leia took to the front of the group of Rogues.

For most of the battle, Leia was only painfully aware of her sweaty palms on the controls of her starfighter, the shouts that the intercom picked up from those in her fleet, and the explosions. 

Explosions of rebel starfighters, of Imperial cruisers, of freighters. It didn't take much to blow up the supplies themselves, but the difficulty of the retreat was something nobody had planned for. 

The Imps were quickly calling for backup, and what used to be a seventeen person squadron had become a fourteen person squadron. The casualties were already much higher than they anticipated- this was supposed to have been _easy_. 

And there might be more still, if they couldn't get those Imps off their trail. 

Leia’s mind spun. They had nowhere to go. They were greatly outnumbered. They were too far away to call for backup. Their starfighters weren't equipped to jump to lightspeed. If they stayed here, they would be massacred. If they retreated and somehow made it to the base without dying, the Imps would without a doubt not pass up on the opportunity to switch targets and assail the base.

"Initiate tactic K-63," Leia called into her comm hoarsely. If she was being completely honest, they were greatly outnumbered. The odds of making it out of this alive were very small, she admitted aloud after a moment of deliberation. 

But they couldn’t lead the Imperials back to the base. She would not allow that. She would not let the Alliance fall. Just like back on the Death Star, she would die first before she would let that happen.

The squadron, to their credit, accepted this readily. Of course nobody _wanted_ to die, but they knew what they signed up for. So they shouldered the burden of the statement like true soldiers, and Leia was about to tell them to give it their all and that if they were going to die, they might as well go down fighting until the very end, until a new voice cut through the sounds of lasers and blasters being fired over the comm.

"Never tell me the odds!" The voice was achingly familiar, achingly foreign.

The battered hull of Millennium Falcon glinted in the starlight as it bore down upon the Imperial fleet, the blasters spitting seemingly endless fire and swallowing metal.

If there was something the Imps had definitely not been counting on on their part, it was for the Millennium Falcon to make an appearance when it did. And with it-

" _Han_?" Luke's disbelieving voice broke out over the line.

"Sorry for crashing your party, kid, but I was nearby and thought you could use a hand. Is it too late to join in on the fun?" Han asked in his usual offhanded way. The unmistakable, slightly indignant roar of a Wookiee rang in the background. 

"Sorry, Chewie. Hey to you too, buddy. Not at all," he answered promptly, and Leia knew right away from his tone that her brother had already forgiven Han Solo for everything.

Leia couldn't seem to find her voice in her throat, and Luke, sensing this, gave the final orders that would push them to victory.

The Imps tried retaliating with blaster fire of their own, but it was of little use. The squadron surged forward to help finish them off, and within a couple of minutes the remaining Imperial ships were obliterated.

“You really need to stop coming in at the last minute and saving us,” Luke said, unable to keep the smile out of his voice. “How many rescues do I owe you for again?”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, kid. Debts are a thing of the past, now. Consider them forgiven.”

The sentence took a minute to register fully for Leia. Luke was a bit swifter.

“You mean-” he began incredulously, but Han laughed him off.

“Don’t you have a base to get back to sometime today?”

Leia wiped her palms down on the pants of her orange suit, trying to control her breathing.

“Are you coming with?” Luke asked, a little too eagerly for Leia’s taste.

So much had changed about Luke. Gone was the young man who had craved adventure so, that for every time he was denied his want only grew stronger. Gone was the orphaned farmboy who had busted her out of her jail cell without a hint of foresight or something even _resembling_ a plan. Gone was the Luke who had cried late into the night after the exhilaration of destroying the Death Star had worn off, cried for the poor souls who’d lived and died for the Alliance and the hope it brought for a better future, cried because of all those who had died trying and all those who would and “ _Leia, how many more of them will follow_? _Leia, what are we fighting for?_ ”

Gone, gone like the wind.

But there was one thing that had not changed about Luke, and that was his unwavering, undying faith. 

In his friends. In his enemies.

In this case, in _Han_ , who in Leia's book somehow managed to fall under both categories, because by saving the day at the last moment yet again he had only succeeded in reinforcing Luke’s belief that no matter what, he would always pull through in the end.

At the Death Star. On Hoth. The dozens of times he’d threatened to leave and still stayed, until the day he didn't. And now, he’d done it again.

He had only succeeded in reinforcing Luke’s belief that Han could be trusted with their trust, that they could put their faith in him and rest easy.

The boy from Tatooine had not yet learned distrust, witnessed betrayal at its most rattling.

Luke was, in this way, still too innocent. 

No matter how much he had grown since the Death Star, he trusted too much, and that would either be his downfall or his saving grace one day. Leia hadn’t the foggiest idea which it would be, but she did know one thing- she did not want to see Luke lose the small bit of juvenescence he had left. She did not want to see him become so world-weary so early as she had, become so tired and indifferent at their lot in life that it ceased to have meaning for him.

Leia wished she could protect him from this, but he was a Skywalker, just as she was (though not in name, never in name), and the blood of the man who had become Darth Vader coursed through both of their bodies. No, this was not something either of them could run from. They could not escape it. Luke had to learn soon, and Leia dreaded the day he would, because she knew firsthand what it did to a person.

She cleared her throat, which effectively grabbed the attention of the squadron.

"We can congratulate ourselves back at the base. It's a bit farther from here since the mission was out of our way, but-”

“Or we could just land on that planet over there, you guys can board, and I can make a quick jump to the base,” Han cut in.

Leia bit the inside of her cheek.

“Thank you, but it’s really not necessary-”

“Leia, it’s fine. Han’s offering. It’ll be a lot faster anyway. I wouldn’t want to stick around so long that more Imps find us and this mission is made harder than it already was,” Luke reasoned, and Leia wanted to shake him.

Of course Han’s offer made sense! But she didn’t want to be stuck on the Millennium Falcon once more, especially after how their last meeting had ended. 

“Come on, Leia.” Luke’s tone was gentler now. “We’re all worn out, and we could cut the travel time by more than half if we go by the Falcon. And then there’s the whole thing with the Imps… they’re going to realize the shipments didn’t make it eventually. And you know their non-communication policy-”

“Alright,” Leia snapped, a little more harshly than she meant to. “Alright, fine. Squadron, you heard Lieutenant Skywalker and Captain Solo. Land on that planet over there so we can board the Falcon.”

She didn’t bother disguising the annoyance in her tone. She had a sick sense of satisfaction knowing from the mutters of response and weighted silence that settled afterwards that it had been picked up on.

They landed on the planet in a tight knit cluster, not leaving their fighters just in case anything hostile happened to make an appearance. Once all of the fighters were loaded onto the Falcon, it took off once more.

Leia chose to stay inside her starfighter, thank you very much, while the Rogues scampered off to gods-know-where. It was a better alternative to getting out, anyway. Luke appeared after about five minutes, smiling like crazy. He perched himself on the hood of her fighter and began rambling excitedly.

“Alright, I gave Han the coordinates for the base. We should be there in about ten minutes. Did you know he paid off his debt fully to Jabba the Hutt a couple of weeks back? And I told Chewie that we’re working to liberate Kashyyyk, and he told me that’s good, because he hasn’t been there in a long time and he wants to go back to see his wife and son soon! I didn’t know Chewie had a wife or a son! Did you? Well technically she’s his mate and he’s his cub- that’s what he refers to them as, anyways- but her name’s Malla and he’s called Lumpy, and he showed me a holo-”

Luke pulled a holopad from the depths of his suit and held it against the glass. 

“He sent it to me- look! Isn’t he cute?”

“Luke.” Leia tried to keep her tone even. “We can’t… we can’t do this again.”

“Do what?” Luke’s eyebrows knitted themselves together in confusion.

“With Han. You can’t keep trusting him so blindly.”

“Blindly?” Luke pulled himself fully on top of the ship and turned to face her. “Leia, you don’t understand. He came back, just like he did when we had to destroy the Death Star-”

“Alright, he came back-”

“ _Twice_ ,” Luke said, as if he was proving some huge point.

“Twice,” she conceded, “But his goals are different from ours. He doesn’t believe in the Force, he doesn’t care about the Alliance, and he had to leave in the first place for both times he returned. Has it ever crossed your mind that-” 

“Maybe that’s true, but he cares about us! Have you forgotten that he’s our friend?”

“Friendship isn’t enough, sometimes! Our biological father thought the Chancellor was his friend, didn’t he?” Luke was staring at her with something ugly beginning to rear in his expression now. She could see his eyes narrowing into thin slits of blue.

“First of all, his name is _Anakin Skywalker_. Second of all, what- so now Han is going to turn us into Sith lords?” Luke threw his hands up in the air and Leia rubbed her forehead.

“No, his name is Darth Vader, and you know that’s not what I mean-” 

“Then what do you mean? Why would we make friends with him if he were untrustworthy? We’ve all gone through so much together-” 

“Those days are _over_ , Luke!” she said, recognizing her voice as dangerously close to a shout but once again in too deep to backtrack. “Don’t you see? What makes you think he’ll stay now that he’s back? He doesn’t _care_ , when will you realize that?”

Luke’s face fell and Leia immediately regretted the aggression of her words when she saw tears begin to well up in his eyes, narrowed and angry as they were.

“You’re _wrong_ ,” he said, words thickened by sorrow, teeth bared in a vicious snarl. “ _You’re wrong_. You know what your problem is? You don’t trust people. You can love someone so much that you’d die for them, so much that you fall into such a deep depression when they leave that nothing in the med bay can even make a dent in-”

“I’m trying to protect you, Luke!” she retorted, the memories of the past two years threatening to resurface. Bringing that up was a cheap move, especially for one such as Luke.

“Y _ou could love someone,_ ” Luke repeated, louder, raising his voice above hers, “so much that you’d close yourself off whenever his name was mentioned, that it was all you could do when you saw him in a holo or on the news! You could love someone so freaking much that everyone knows, but you refuse to believe it yourself-”

“Of course I believe it! Why would I be like this if I didn’t? Why would I be so reluctant to trust him once more if the idea of him breaking that trust and flying off again would be enough to send me into a slump I don’t think I’d be capable of getting out of?” 

Her hand came down on the controls with a dull slap, fingernails curling and biting into the flesh of her palm and she ground her teeth. "Why would I be acting like this if I weren't also looking out for you while I'm at it?"

Luke looked stricken. He slid off the hood of her cruiser numbly, as if in a trance, and starting walking away, his back turned to her. After a few steps he lurched forward, staggering a foot or so as he struggled to keep his balance. 

She held onto the inside of her starfighter to avoid being thrown into the dash. The Falcon must have made the jump to lightspeed.

"Yes, go on!” Leia climbed out of the starfighter as soon as it was stable, pointing after him accusingly, her insecurities jumping out at the sight of him, too, walking away. “You go on and leave me too!”

Luke stopped in his tracks and turned, stunned, tear tracks still fresh and shining on his cheeks. He started walking towards her, footsteps brisk and intent, but she shoved him back.

_Don’t do this. Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this- Leia, what would Papa say-_

“You don’t think I know what I’m talking about?” Her face felt hot and she could feel liquid dripping off her chin, but she was so past the point of caring. “You don’t- you don’t think that I missed him too? That I couldn’t stand to see his name or his face because it made everything that happened the day he left feel fresh and raw and I didn’t know if I would ever get the chance to try to patch that up or say sorry or tell him the truth-”

“Leia-” Luke took a tentative step forward and she shoved him back once more with such force that he stumbled backwards.

“No! Fuck you, Luke- _fuck you_ \- you really think I’m untrusting just for the sake of being untrusting? Do you know that- that in the weeks after the heating was down I continued to sleep on the Falcon and-” 

Her voice shook and cracked suddenly, and she berated herself for showing it, that she cared too much about Han, about Luke, about all of this. Still, Leia continued, because he had the _audacity_ to assume that she didn’t know, didn’t care, that it was _easy_ for her to think this way when everything else that could have had a say in the matter begged to differ.

“ _-_ and he used to hold me _-_ _every night_ , he used to put his arms around me and hold me until I fell asleep and I would feel _safe_ , like nothing could ever go wrong again. I’d forget there was even a fucking war or that we could die any day- and do you know that when I’d wake up screaming from whatever fucking nightmare he’d hold me some more, let me cry into his shoulder and he would sing- he’d hold me like a godsdamn child against his chest and fucking _sing_ to me, old, beautiful Corellian lullabies that I couldn’t understand, I was always too exhausted to ask or to care-”

She was becoming hysterical now, and she could see the chagrin on Luke’s face. She’d never told him any of this, never told anyone. She knew that someday she would have to, but always assumed it would be over a nicked half-empty bottle of whatever alcohol the Rogues had brought back, when they were both too hammered to think twice about what came out of their mouths. She never imagined it would be like this, accusatory and overwhelming… 

“-and he never _once_ made me feel like I owed him for it, the lost sleep, the long nights, the insanity- not _once_. _I_ _loved him_ , okay, I loved him!” It was the first time she’d said it out loud, heard herself say it.

_~~I still love him-~~ _

"I- I love him too, I trusted him too, this isn’t _easy_ , and you think it must come so naturally for me to second-guess and be suspicious _but it doesn’t_ -”

Without her noticing, Luke had managed to bridge the gap between them once more. He didn’t get too close, but his arms were open and they looked so warm. So _inviting._

She looked at him. His mouth was pressed in a tight smile and his eyes glistened with water. She imagined she must look the same, or almost the same. Gods, she was tired of fighting, especially with Luke. She didn’t _want_ to fight with him. Fighting with the person you’re closest with in the world is a different kind of horrible.

Still, she hesitated. 

“Let me hold you,” he said, voice raspy, and then he stopped abruptly, cheeks colouring. “ _Gods_ , that sounded weird. Sorry. That’s not what I- you know what I mean, right?”

She knew. It was all the encouragement she needed to close the few inches between them. She hugged him tightly and he hugged her back, the tightness of his arms around her relaying all too clearly his contrite, the apology he couldn’t put into words.

She hid her face in the coarse fabric of his orange suit, hating herself for having blown up at him because this was Luke- _good, kind, Luke-_ and at the end of the day he would always be just that towards her, regardless of whatever she might do to deserve otherwise.

“I’m sorry, Leia,” he mumbled against her hair. She could feel his tears leaking into her hair but she didn’t mind. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you felt that way about all this.” 

“You deserved it.” She tried to keep the edge in her voice, but the intended effect was lost when she sniffled noisily. “But I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have blown up like that.”

“No, you’re right. I did deserve it, but I appreciate the apology.” He seemed to waver for a second. “Leia, what you said about leaving…”

He pulled back and looked at her, eyes big and genuine. 

“I wouldn’t ever leave you.” One of his hands came up to her face, wiping away at her eyes, his touch tender and soft. Had it been nearly anyone else, this level of intimacy would have felt romantically coded and made her uncomfortable, but it wasn't. Even if Luke weren’t her long-lost twin brother, she knew him well enough to think otherwise of his intentions. “You’re all I have left in the universe. My aunt and uncle are dead, and my parents…” He shook his head, bottom lip quivering slightly.

Leia didn’t correct him- ‘our parents’ was something that went unsaid. It was a concept they both still had to get used to. Being family wasn't- they’d naturally been close since the very start. Sharing parents was. It felt strange at times. It seemed like just yesterday they’d met and just minutes ago they’d discovered they shared lineage. 

“I want you to know that. I’m _not_ leaving, and I hate fighting with you. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Neither do I,” she murmured. 

Luke had a sedating quality about him, like a cool breeze, like tranquil waves lapping at a shore. She always felt calmer around him. Her head felt clearer. It applied in this situation, and Leia was more grateful than ever for her brother’s nonplussed demeanor.

For that moment it was just them, two siblings who were only just discovering what it meant to be family to each other in the most literal sense of the word. It was such a peaceful, still moment. Leia could have lived in it forever. 

_Family_. She thought she’d lost the last of that when she’d watched the blue gem that was Alderaan be shattered like glass. She was probably too attached to Luke for it to be healthy, but she was just as set on protecting him as he was on protecting her. She would not lose Luke too. She loved him too much to be able to tolerate losing him as well. 

Luke had become a constant in her life. He had become her anchor. When everyone else had died or left or moved on, Luke had remained.

He was all she had left.

His fingers moved to brush a strand of hair away from her eyes, and he leaned down and pressed a light, chaste kiss on her forehead. She could feel his unease through their Force-bond, his hope that he hadn’t crossed any boundaries. A question put out, maybe not through his own will but so strong, so fitful- _is this okay_?

_Yes._

“I love you,” Luke said plainly and simply, relief in his words, adoration in his gaze. It was as if he could read her mind. Leia was momentarily dumbstruck. 

She couldn’t fathom being deserving of such unfiltered love in return. The affections of a person such as Luke seemed precious, like it should be guarded and reciprocated sparingly.

Luke who was so pious, Luke who was so _good_ , in every sense of the word, despite having every reason in the universe to be otherwise. Luke, who still believed that _somewhere_ in there, despite every unforgivable sin he had committed against them- _against the universe_ \- that Darth Vader still had some small shred of good in him. 

In spite of it all, Luke was good and he believed in goodness. It was the most accurate description of his character Leia could come up with.

In spite of everything _… good._ It prevailed. Every single time.

“I love you too,” she whispered, so that only he could hear even if it was only them two, but the phrase seemed too loud in the empty hangar, resounding, fighting to be heard over the roaring of the engine.

Someone cleared their throat behind them and just like that, the moment was broken.

On instinct, Leia planted her hands on Luke’s chest, pushed him away from her, and whirled around like a youngling caught with their hand in the cookie jar. She winced when she heard Luke’s _oof_ and spared a second to mouth a quick ‘sorry’ in his direction. She then turned her attention to the intruder.

A man who undeniably was and at the same time couldn’t _possibly_ be Han Solo stood before them in the entrance of the hangar, arms crossed over his chest. 

Han-who-couldn’t-be-Han had the same steely hazel eyes as Han, the same broad shoulders and the same belt slung low and crooked on his narrow hips, with its trademark DL-44 strapped to his thigh. The same borderline ugly vest, the same unkempt, disheveled hair. His gait was identical, the swagger apparent in his stance, in the way one hip was so blithely cocked out, was so flippant, so callous, so _Han_. 

But the Han who had visited her quarters before leaving was not this Han. That Han didn’t have a groove running through his hair on the left side of his head, right next to his temple, or an explosion of lighter, roughened skin that resembled a botched fireworks display marring the right side of his face. 

The scar covered most of his cheek but split at his temple, one end curling into his eyebrow and the other streaking over the bridge of his nose. As Leia studied it, she vaguely wondered how in hells the stars had aligned in his favour in order to save his eyesight. It travelled down that side of his neck and shoulder, disappearing under the collar of his shirt and ending gods-know-where. 

That Han didn't jut his hip out because he was visibly favouring one leg and trying to keep weight off of it. That Han did not look more like a war veteran than anything.

Leia didn't want to believe that they were one and the same. Although his features were identical down to the scar on his chin that had been there for as long as she could remember, she still wouldn’t have believed it if not for the defiance she saw in him. The same proud, haughty features that, cicatricial as they were, couldn’t ever belong to anybody else. 

There was not another man in the universe who emanated such raw hubris. It all begged the question- what had happened to him in the last two years?

“We, uh, thought we heard screaming,” he said in obvious discomfort, snapping Leia from her thoughts. “I left Chewie to land and came down to see if everything was alright. Obviously things are more than alright, so…” He cleared his throat, eyes moving between the two of them slowly. “We should be at the Rebel Base in a minute or so.”

“Yeah, that’s great. We’ll unload ourselves and get everyone settled back in as soon as you give the word. Also, how long have you been standing there?” Luke asked.

“Long enough, and now would be good. Shall I give you two a moment of privacy before your Rogues invade the hangar again?”

“It’s not like that.” Luke was blushing furiously at the implication, a subtle look of disgust that few could recognize etched onto his features. Gods know that Han certainly hadn’t stuck around long enough to learn to pick up on his more minute expressions. “We’ll be getting strapped in. You can send the Rogues down. Besides, Leia’s my-”

“Right, right, your _‘friend’_.” Han made air quotes with his fingers and leaned into the doorway, painting a picture Leia had spent the last two years trying to forget. “Kid, what in the nine Corellian hells makes you think they’ll listen to me?”

“Tell the Rogues Lieutenant Skywalker and General Organa are paging them in the hangar,” Leia spoke up firmly. “They will listen, trust me.”

Han's eyebrows rose into his hairline as he looked at her.

“Whatever you say, Your Worship.” He shrugged and left the hangar, a slight limp pronounced in his step.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Leia turned to her brother.

“What happened to him?”

“Bounty hunters were tipped off about his location a while back. You know how it gets.” 

No, she didn’t, but she wasn't going to tell Luke that. Instead she said, “Do you think he thinks there’s something going on between us?”

Luke frowned. “Probably. You want to tell him that we’re twins, or…?”

“Later. Frankly I couldn’t care less what he thinks about us. But you have to admit, what he thinks he walked in on probably didn’t seem too familial.”

They started walking towards their starfighters.

“Maybe, but our relation is pretty common knowledge among the base. If we don’t correct him, someone else definitely will.”

Luke offered Leia a foot up and she accepted. She stepped onto his interlocked fingers and he boosted her up into the starfighter, which was a lot more dignified than having to scale the side and clamber in. As soon as she was seated in the cockpit, Luke buckled himself into his own seat. 

Footsteps alerted them of the Rogues’ presence. Leia stayed quiet as the squadron got into their fighters and fired up the engines, letting the familiar commotion flood her senses. She wished the trip back to the Base were longer. She could have used an extra five or ten minutes to sit with her brother in almost-quiet and certain comfort.

The hatch opened after a couple of minutes, creaking and groaning. Leia and Luke led the squadron down the ramp and into the hangar of the Base.

The Rogues jumped from their starfighters, slapping each other on the backs and cheering. Leia didn’t condemn them for this. By a twist of fate, they had come back with their lives. They reserved the right to celebrate their good luck as they wished. 

She saw Carlist approaching their group, taking in the Falcon with confusion in the lines of his forehead, and she held up a palm just in his line of sight.

She shook her head, just barely. Carlist stopped, the edges of his lips turning down a little, as he regarded her with his kind yet calculating eyes. He gave a careful nod. 

They would speak about this later. The mission was a success and that was all that mattered… at the moment.

She leaned against her fighter, watching the commotion with a quiet mirth. She felt a presence next to her, someone’s weight settling against the smooth metal with ease. She didn’t start. She knew who it was.

“Are you alright?” Luke asked her, vacantly staring ahead.

She chose not to respond immediately.

“Tired.”

“If I didn’t know you any better I’d think the next words out of your mouth would be _‘I think I’ll see myself to bed because I need the rest_.’ Unfortunately, I do know you better than that.”

“I can’t sleep, Luke. You know how it is…” A shudder ran through her and she let her head drop onto his shoulder, desperate for the contact and the solace she hoped it would bring.

He put an arm around her.

“Are you going to talk to him?”

“No.” 

“I figured as much.” He ran a hand through his short hair. His braid bounced back and forth with the movement, tickling her cheek.

“Speak of the devil,” she muttered, swatting at his braid. Maybe the bangs were preferable compared to this.

Han Solo marched down the ramp of his ship, offering Carlist a half-bow and a polite handshake. She watched their lips move in conversation. The only sign of surprise on Carlist’s face was the slight jump of his eyebrows. Han kept one hand on his blaster and the other stuffed in his pocket. Carlist was doubtless asking questions about what he had been up to. Han answered most of his questions easily, throwing his head back with good-natured laughter once or twice. 

She remembered how she’d burst into his office, pleading with him to page the Falcon, and vaguely wondered what Carlist was thinking. Did he see a frenzied princess in his mind's eye as he spoke with the captain? Did he have questions for her that went beyond the specifics of the mission? Leia suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

“You want out of here?” Luke mumbled to her, ever the compassionate. 

“Please.”

He closed his eyes and before Leia could question him, something crashed somewhere on the other side of the base.

Everyone’s heads snapped in the direction of the noise. Taking advantage of their temporary distraction, Luke grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the room.

“Where are we running to?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead,” he admitted.

“Typical. What was that crash?”

“Some empty crates in the storage units.” They ducked into an empty corridor to catch their breath.

“Who’s going to be picking those up?” 

“Me.” Luke closed his eyes again and snapped them back open, shooting her a mischievous grin.

“Aren’t Jedi only supposed to use their Force powers for non-personal reasons?”

“I'm not a Jedi _yet_ ," he reminded her.

"Fine, but you couldn’t have created some other distraction?” she asked and he shook his head.

“Nope,” he said, popping his lips on the _p._

"Whatever. If you had to go and do all that can we at least go somewhere that's not this corridor? It won't be empty forever." She leaned back against the wall, allowing her breathing to slow.

"Uh… my room? Or yours, maybe?" he said after a bit of thinking.

"If we go quickly we can make it without getting caught. Whose is closer?"

"Yours, I think."

"I'll take you there, then."

Hand in hand, they rushed through the halls of the Base, hiding behind freight and in deserted hallways whenever they heard footsteps or voices. It was the most childlike she’d felt in a long time, and it wasn't necessarily a bad thing, either. In fact, she was rather enjoying it.

They had neared her barracks when Carlist's booming voice rang out in the hall. Leia started, but Luke slapped his hand over her mouth and pulled her behind a precariously balanced stack of crates. 

“Princess? Princess Leia, are you here?” Carlist's voice travelled down the hall and Luke gave her a questioning look.

 _I’ll explain later_ , she mouthed.

Carlist sighed. They sat with bated breath, waiting for his footsteps to recede. When they didn’t, Leia was baffled. Her bafflement ceased when, after a moment, the footsteps began to become louder. She looked at Luke in panic when the noise stopped right in front of their stack of crates.

“Those damn Rogues…” the general mumbled. “I keep telling them not to stack these damned crates in the hallways where they’re in the way, but do they listen? _Nooo_.”

Luke snickered, and it was Leia’s turn to stifle the sound by covering his mouth.

 _Gods, do_ not _let us get caught hiding behind a stack of crates like two younglings_ , Leia prayed silently. _By Carlist, no less!_

She watched Carlist's calloused fingers grasp one of the crates and straighten it out.

A commlink crackled, and his voice rumbled over the line. 

“This is General Rieekan. Can I get some Rogues in here to move these crates in the passage near the barracks and into the storage units?” 

A pause, and a Rogue’s voice sputtered over the comm, indistinguishable to her.

“Right, okay. And for the love of all that is good and holy, please do _not_ keep stacking them like this. Poses a hazard.”

The commlink shut off, and finally- _finally_ \- Carlist's fleeting footsteps faded as he made his way down the hall. 

They gave it a few extra seconds for good measure, and then bolted into Leia’s barracks where Luke immediately collapsed in her desk chair.

"That was the most thrilling thing I've done in a while," he admitted.

"You just blew up Imperial shipments today-" Leia panted, out of breath herself as she sat down on her bunk- "you destroyed the Death Star, faced off Vader himself- and sneaking around Base like two younglings thrills you?”

"That was different," he said solemnly. "Our lives were on the line then. This was _fun._ When was the last time you’ve had any real fun?”

“Not that long ago,” she protested. “We had a party the other month…” She trailed off, realizing how ridiculous she sounded.

Luke chuckled. “Besides, have you ever had to evade energetic Rogues?" 

"Luke, I want you to think back to all the times I mysteriously vanished after you came back from a mission."

"That's cold, Leia." He pouted, looking so childish that Leia couldn't hold back a giggle.

"You asked a question, I gave an answer."

He straightened out in the chair. "Will you braid my hair?"

The question was very out of the blue, especially considering what they’d been talking about only moments before. That didn’t mean she minded, though.

"I mean, there's not much to braid since you cut it…" Leia peered at his head but patted the spot next to her anyway.

Luke eagerly took the seat and she sat back on her knees for better access to his hair.

Leia began working. She started a little to the right of the nape of his neck and braided all the way around the left side of his head and to the center of his hairline.

“I’m doing a sort of crown,” she explained as she went along. “It’s something my mother used to do on my hair. She taught it to me.”

“Yeah, I know the one you’re talking about. It’s very elegant.”

“Yes, it’s supposed to be. I’m sure you’ll be the envy of everyone on Base,” she teased.

“Maybe not the _envy_ , but I’ll be the prettiest boy on Base for sure.” Leia tightened her hold on his hair, but not hard enough to hurt.

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re up there, but I can name a few boys prettier than you,” she said, once again, without thinking.

“You mean like Ha-”

She tightened her hold on the ends of his hair and snapped his head back.

“I have your hair in my hands. Watch yourself,” she growled, none too intimidating, then added, “I need you to keep your head still-” She leaned over him to properly see what she was working on. “-so I can braid this around without it becoming crooked."

“Leia, you’re tilting my head so far back that I can’t breathe,” he gasped.

“Just a couple of seconds, you’ll be fine.” Still, she relaxed her grip and lowered his head a little.

“Who were you talking about, then?”

“Carlist,” she answered firmly.

“Carlist? As in, General Rieekan? The same General Rieekan that’s just a smidge taller than you, wrinkly, gray, and old enough to be our father?” Luke deadpanned. “ _That_ General Rieekan?”

She yanked on a tuft of hair she’d gathered in her fist as a warning- sharply, but not hard enough to hurt for more than a few seconds. He yelped.

“Ow! _Alright_ , _alright-_ sorry,” he groused, wincing.

“Don’t sell him short. I’ve seen pictures of him when he was your age. Very easy on the eyes.”

“Leia, _gross_.” He huffed, then made the mistake of sing-songing, “You needn’t lie to me, dear sister. You and I both know who the object of your affections is- tall, dark, hazel-eyed, word has it he’s a bit of a _scoundrel_ -”

“If you ever say the word 'needn't' or reference your poorly chosen best friend again, I will rip your Padawan braid out faster than you can say ‘Ewok’,” she hissed, hoping her cheeks weren’t as hot as they felt. That shut him up pretty quickly and she resigned herself to finishing the hairstyle.

She continued weaving strands of hair back around his right ear, where she tied it off to avoid messing with his Padawan braid and pinned it in place with some bobby pins. Then, she tugged at the individual strands that she had plaited together to loosen them and give it some volume. The end result was, if she did say so herself, some of her best work. A thick, voluminous, _elegant_ crown that framed his face nicely.

“To finish it off I’m turning this stupid ponytail into an equally stupid braided ponytail.”

Luke rolled his eyes but let her proceed. That part was quick enough. Her fingers seemed to fly as they wove together the fine blond strands of hair. 

She took a step back and examined her handiwork, satisfied.

"Is it finished?"

She gave an affirmative nod. “I think there’s a mirror in the fresher if you want to see what it looks like.”

He ducked into the fresher and ducked back out just as fast.

“Well, I think whoever ‘the prettiest boy on Base is’ has some competition. I mean, look at me!”

He struck a ridiculous pose and Leia had to laugh.

“Thank you,” she said once she could manage to. “For taking the edge off this evening. This… it’s hard, you know?”

They both could tell she wasn't talking about hair.

“Yeah, I know. It was hard for me too. He’s my best friend, so coming to terms with him leaving wasn't easy. I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but when I saw him today… I realized just how much I had been anticipating it. Like from the second he left I was waiting for him to come back.”

“It was different for me. When I saw him in the hangar, I think I realized how much I wished I could have stopped him that day, prevented this all… have you seen his face? I mean, it’s… it’s not deformed, per se, more like…”

“Gently maimed?” Luke offered helpfully.

“Gently maimed. And it’s not something that’s easy to look at, you know? I just wish… that I could have prevented it. I feel like I should have stopped him that day.”

“He’s better off for it, Leia. He’s debt free and no longer wanted by a freaking crime lord-"

“I know that. Who said the right decision had to be easy? Who says I _wanted_ to make the right decision? I was never allowed to be selfish. I was a princess whose mother was a well respected queen and whose father was a viceroy and Rebel leader, for gods’ sakes. But I wish I could have been selfish. Just that once. I grew up not knowing anything _but_ responsibility and selflessness. And it’s so tiring…” She broke off suddenly, embarrassed. "I'm doing that thing again, aren't I? Where-"

"-All your suppressed emotions come spewing out at once, unprompted? Yeah. You are. Not a bad thing, though. Continue."

"I wish I could have taken it back. That stupid argument. There was something there… we both just elected to ignore it. While sleeping with each other, no less!"

"Wait, you guys-"

Leia felt her ears heat up. "Gods, no, Luke! Just sleeping. Like, _sleep_ sleeping. Get your mind out of the gutter, damn it."

He had the decency to look embarrassed.

"I think he still likes you."

Leia snorted. "You sound like a child. Besides, he told me he hoped we never saw each other again before he left."

"Were those his exact words?" Luke plunked down onto her desk chair once more.

"Well… no… he said, and I quote, 'For your sake and mine, I hope we never cross paths again.' But that's pretty much the same thing."

Luke seemed to ponder that for a moment.

"Leia," he said abruptly. "Be honest. Are you afraid of having your heart broken by Han?"

"What the hells kind of a question is that?" she asked indignantly. “‘ _Having my heart broken_.’ I’m not afraid of anything, least of all _him_.”

"Leia. Be honest."

"I am being honest!”

“No, you’re not.”

She huffed. “Well, what did you think the answer was going to be? Of course I am! But only because I know he can. I know he can and I hate myself for it. I didn’t _ask_ to feel this way about him.”

"Mm. Have you ever maybe considered that he’s equally afraid of having his heart broken by you?"

"By _me_?" she said disbelievingly. Luke nodded, completely serious. "Luke, how could I possibly hurt him in the same way he…"

She stopped, suddenly thinking back to their fight the day he'd left.

_You just love to assume you know it all, don't you?_

_You’ll have Luke, and the two of you will be just_ peachy _together after I’m gone_!

_You’d defend him to the last breath._

_It was you._

_You were untouchable._

_For your sake and mine, I hope we never cross paths again._

Oh. 

_Oh._

She involuntarily clutched at the hand that Han had kissed that day, holding it to her chest.

"Think about it, Leia. You're a princess. He's a smuggler. If the roles were reversed, and he were a prince and renowned symbol of rebellion, and you were just a smuggler from the backallies of wherever, wouldn’t you feel like he was… I don't know, too good for you?”

“No,” she said, just to be difficult, “because I don’t deal in material ideals.”

“It has nothing to do with material ideals! Han never thought whatever was between you two to ever amount to anything much. He was scared. And after you started 'sleeping together'-" His ears pinkened a little- "it probably became worse. Leia, are you alright?"

“‘Someone like me’,” she said bitterly. “‘ _Someone like me’_. What’s so great about me? What’s so intimidating? If anything, Han’s the one who… he’s…”

“He’s…?” Luke made a ‘go on’ motion with his hand.

“Annoying and selfish and arrogant and doesn’t know how to communicate properly,” she finished hastily, turning away from him.

“Neither do you.”

“I’m not arrogant!”

“Maybe not, but you don’t know how to communicate properly either. Just keep in mind that you never said anything to him about any of this until your huge argument, and that was when it all blew up in your faces. You’re just as wrong as he is, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my best friend,” Luke said decisively.

Leia turned around for the sole purpose of glaring at him. It felt as if Luke were ganging up on her and busting out these ridiculous accusations. When did this turn into a session of couch therapy?

“He was jealous of you, you know,” she said finally. “Thought there was something between us. Got mad and defensive about it.”

Luke let out a long breath. “ _Yeah_. I’m pretty sure that was made obvious enough by the way he was acting when he walked in on us in the hangar.”

Leia didn’t respond. Everything left unsaid hung in the air. Their Force bond was hypersensitive and tense and fragile all at once, like a rubberband stretched too far. Leia could feel everything Luke was feeling- his gentle frustration, his exasperation, his determination to set things right between her and Han. She had no doubt he could feel her hollowness, her dull melancholy, her weak anger.

“Well?” he asked quietly.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to find him and set things right?”

“No,” she said bluntly.

“No harm can come out of it, Leia,” he tried, but Leia cut him off.

“I’m not doing it, okay? I’m not finding him, I’m not speaking to him- _I’m not_! I don’t want to. I can’t… _I can’t_ …” 

It was like deja vu. She realized she was crying when her hand involuntarily went up to blindly wipe away her tears. Luke was by her side in an instant, holding her and whispering into her ear. She almost wished she were drunk, so that she could pin the blame on her intoxication. 

She didn’t know what he was saying. His voice sounded fuzzy and out of focus. She wanted the comfort. She wanted to accept it. She _wanted_ to. 

But not like this. Not from Luke. She wanted something- _someone_ \- else, long gone and buried beneath the rubble of the past.

She found herself burying her face into his shoulder anyway, forcing out shameful confessions between weak sobs.

“You don’t _understand-_ I told him he was selfish and greedy and that I measured him up to the asshole who rescued me from the Death Star with you all that time ago- I told him if he even ever cared about us he would have left a long time ago-”

A small noise escaped Luke’s throat. “Oh _, Leia_ -”

“You’re right, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I wanted to tell him he should have left and come back as soon as possible because we need him, but instead I said _that._ I said that and so much more, so much worse than that, and he said- he said-”

She heaved a spasming breath and burst out, “ _Y_ _ou don’t think I know that?_ ”

Luke’s arms went rigid around her. Waves of deep despair that were not her own washed over her, the impact of each one as painful as that of a vibroblade.

“It was my fault. And I’ve spent the last two fucking years trying to convince myself it wasn't, but it _is_ , because _I_ was selfish, _I_ was angry, _I_ was running from him and he was better than me, he was acknowledging our stupid feelings for each other in his stupid way and he when he left he just doing what he needed to do and it was _my fault_ that things left off the way they did-”

“You’re both in the wrong. It’s not black and white,” he said reasonably.

She shook her head rapidly. Her muscles felt bunched up and sore and yet it hurt more to try to relax them.

“Look at you, you’re shaking like a leaf,” Luke muttered to himself. He shoved her off of him firmly but lovingly and, like a fretful mother hen, draped a blanket over her shoulders. 

“What if he doesn’t- what if he says-” she gasped out, finally forcing herself to grasp the reality that Han’s eyes might not go soft when he looked at her anymore, that they would deaden and dull and he’d become frigid around her once more, like the enemies they’d tried to convince themselves they were, but only for real this time. 

Luke looked at her sadly. and she remembered their Force bond with acute awareness.

“I know,” he said quietly, his hand sliding over to hers. “I know. You’re afraid, just like he is. And Master Yoda said fear makes people do strange and dangerous things, but didn’t I tell you the day we looked at those holos, the way he _looked_ at you… and I saw all of it all over again when I watched him look at you today. Sadder, maybe. But all that and more. It’s worth a shot. I promise you.”

“I feel ridiculous,” she whispered, “like a youngling… this is the most verklempt I’ve gotten in a while.”

“Verklempt?”

“Emotional.”

“Oh. That’s… that’s not a bad thing, you know. I mean, the word is awful. Never use it again around me. But being emotional isn’t.”

“Nobody takes you seriously if you’re a female in a position of power and you’re emotional,” she said, vexed, through tears. “ _You_ have the privilege of being taken seriously no matter what. I don’t. You know why people think I’m such a bitch? Because I have to appear stone cold and unfeeling, which is stupid, because if I were always this emotional then I would _still_ be labelled as a bitch. I’m damned either way. So yes, it is bad. I’d rather be thought of as a bitch for being too unfeeling than for feeling too much. The connotation that comes with each is different, and one is only slightly more respectable than the other.”

“That was a schooling on sexism in the Alliance that I was not expecting but is entirely welcome. Tell me more about it after you talk to Han.”

She buried her face in her hands. 

“Do I have a choice?” she asked around her fingers.

“Yes. I encourage you to talk to him, but you don’t have to if you really, _really_ don’t want to.”

Leia sighed. “How long do I have?”

Luke tried and failed to hide a delighted beam. “I don’t know. Best to do it as soon as possible. He didn’t tell me how long he was staying or if he was even staying at all.”

“But what if things don’t work out? What if you were wrong? This territory is just as uncharted for me as this new planet is. I was taught how to hide what I feel, not embrace it so openly.”

“You were open about it to me,” he pointed out.

“That’s different. You’re _you._ You’re my brother. You won’t judge me, just like I won’t judge you. We have a Force bond. The dynamics I have with you and Han are very, very different.”

“I guess that’s true, but you two are closer than you care to admit. You always were. The countless missions you came back from, nonchalantly mentioning how you had to huddle to conserve body heat in hostile environments or share a bed- do you have any idea how much that fuelled the gossip about you two?"

Leia fought to keep herself from smiling at the memories.

"The Rogues have nothing better to do than gossip. What's flying about you and Wedge these days is particularly juicy."

Luke reddened considerably.

" _My point_ _is_ ," he said with more emphasis than was necessary, "he's Han. He always wanted to have been able to understand you. I have no doubt he still does."

"How do you know so much about what Han wants and doesn't want and knows and doesn't know?"

"How else? He told me- back when he didn't know how he felt about you, if he liked or hated you. Chewie made fun of him too much for him to have been able to talk to him about something like that without getting teased no end. So naturally, he came to yours truly instead."

Leia's head was starting to throb a bit too much to continue this conversation.

"I'm starting to have a bit of a headache. Thank you, Luke, but you should be going. And don't worry," she added before he could interrupt, "I will have spoken to him by the morning."

He smiled at her, blue eyes bright but tired. The day must have taken so much out of him, and he barely let it show… 

"Good. And please, Leia…" He looked over his shoulder, one hand resting on the doorframe. "Try to sleep. I know it's hard, but…"

"Only if you promise the same," she said back, as a way of challenging him. 

He narrowed his eyes at her, and she could tell that he saw right through the ‘challenge.’ _I won’t unless you won’t._ Heavens knew Luke got just as many hours of sleep as her, if not fewer.

"Fine. I'll hold you to that,” he relented.

He left, and Leia let her eyes close as she listened to the faint clicking of his heeled boots on the tile.

Her eyes opened, and she stared at the bare, clean wall for a long while.

She steeled herself. She unwrapped the blanket from around her shoulders, got up, folded it, and smoothed the sheets out. She glanced in the fresher mirror to make sure her eyes didn't look too red, and washed her hands- which were beginning to sweat- on the way out. 

She changed from her stiff orange flightsuit into a black tank and sweatpants- a decent medium, because they were too casual to be workplace dayclothes but not informal enough to wear to sleep. She splashed water on her face. It was cold and cutting and she found the sting refreshing.

Leia stared at her reflection in the mirror, wiping away the water dripping off of her chin, and tried not to be filled with too much self-loathing.

_What would your father think?_

The thought came to her suddenly, and made her ache inside.

 _Oh, Papa_ , she thought, _what_ would _you say? Would you be proud? Would you disapprove? Papa, I wish you were here now more than ever. Gods, Papa, I miss you…_

She felt unsteady on her feet, and was struck with the memory of five year old Leia, running to meet her father halfway as he returned from another meeting that she had been too young to know the specifics of. She had tripped in her haste, and the strong arms of her Papa had caught her before she'd hit the ground. She'd looked up, and he was smiling down at her. He'd wrapped her up in a crushing bear hug, and she'd felt safe in spite of the tumble that was the closest thing to a near-death experience for a five year old, the height of danger at that point in her life.

If only he were here… he would know what to do, what to say. He would _know_ , because he was her _papa-_ stable and sound like the mountains that used to overlook the palace on Alderaan, his presence constant and reassuring.

But she wasn't a youngling anymore, and her Papa was dead and gone. There was no longer anyone to catch her before she fell and wrap her up in their arms after.

She decided to splash her face once more for good measure, then lathered her hands with soap to scour the grime and tears from her skin. She didn’t bother towelling the water off and took a careful step out of the fresher. Her headache seemed to be worsening by the minute.

It was strange. Very rarely when commanding troops did she long for her father. The dull pain that she'd felt ever since Alderaan's destruction was still constant, but she never allowed herself to feel it too much when there were more important things at hand and other lives on the line that she could not recklessly endanger because of her own grief.

Perhaps it was also because she was in her element at those times. Her father's guidance wasn't something she felt she needed when leading, something that came so naturally to her. Maybe she hurt over the loss of her father now especially because he should have been there to hold her hand and stumble with her through ventures so unknown, such as this. It was a brutal injustice that he wasn't, that he and her mother and the center of her universe had been ripped away from her and everyone else, at no fault of their own.

At her fault.

_Papa, lend me your strength. You always did say it takes more courage to be true to yourself than to lead an army. I'd rather be leading an army… leading an army is easier than this._

Her papa would have laughed at that sentiment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia talks to Han after two years, and the makings of reparations are born.

Her boots didn't click against the tile like Luke's had. The heels on his were different from hers, a pair from his home on Tatooine that were designed differently from their standard Alliance-issued boots. Leia preferred it that way. She did not care to alert the whole base of her presence at this hour.

Leia let her feet do the walking. The base was quiet at night, save for the clamour of the Rogues, who were still up and about. Her feet stopped, and she looked up. She found herself standing beside her starfighter. 

She ran her fingers over the cool metal and pulled herself onto the hood, hugging her knees to her chest. Her head pounded relentlessly as she stared off into empty space, and she brought up one of her hands to massage her temple.

She felt she needed a moment to collect herself before doing much of anything. Maybe it was her way of putting off the inevitable, but it was her way nonetheless.

What would she say to him? What would she do? How could she make amends after all this time? Leia wished, for a moment, that she were a more emotionally intelligent person, like Luke. 

_Oh Luke_ , she thought, tilting her head back and closing her eyes briefly, _what am I_ doing _? How are you so sure this will all work out in the end?_

The night air was humid and time seemed to move like honey on this new, warmer planet, thick and viscous. Leia took a deep breath and sighed. She caught a whiff of something herbal and soothing. 

_Chamomile_ , she thought hazily. 

She drove her index and middle finger into her temple and took another deep breath. The smell took her back to her childhood, when she used to drink tea in the courtyard on breezy evenings with her mother and Winter.

It seemed so real.

"What I wouldn't do," she mused darkly, out loud, "for a good, strong cup of Alderaanian tea…"

Suddenly, she stopped trying to alleviate her headache for a minute and sat up, taking deep breaths of the air.

It did seem real. Too real.

Leia skidded clumsily off the hood of the ship and, with ridiculous determination, started off in the direction of the aroma that she was now almost positive was not a figment of her imagination.

She passed the Falcon, still in the port where it had landed some hours ago, and doubled back almost immediately in a way that some might consider comical. She stopped in front of the lowered ramp, confused.

She inhaled again. Yes, that was the smell of freshly brewed tea. Perhaps not Alderaanian, but tea nonetheless.

She stood there, puzzled, as she examined the exterior of the old freighter. The ramp was down, which could explain the wafting, but it wouldn't be so strong if it were coming from the kitchen inside. Why was the ramp even down at this hour, anyway?

A scuffling noise echoed in the silence of the room, interrupting her thoughts, right at Leia's feet.

Carefully, she ducked down and peeked behind the ramp.

Whatever she expected to find when she looked behind the ramp, it definitely was not Han Solo with his back against the metal, balancing a saucer and a cup of steaming tea on one knee and a novel on the other, glaring at her as if she had just killed Chewie and stolen his ship.

They stared at each other for a moment, neither person daring to blink.

Han caved first.

"Oh, for the love of- when our shelter was on fire a dozen yards away that one time on that one mission, you couldn't smell the smoke _then,_ but like a fucking bloodhound you somehow manage to track down a cup of tea just from the _smell_?"

"It was a volcanic planet," she retaliated. "The entire _place_ reeked of smoke!"

He rolled his eyes, a steady flush crawling up his neck.

She leaned back against the ramp, initial shock now beginning to wear off.

"Who would have thought," she said, now amused, "that Han Solo, infamous smuggler, is a tea drinker. If memory serves, didn't you praise the godsly effects of caf the night after you finally managed to fix the busted engine of your bucket of bolts?"

The pace of the flush quickened. He took a particularly noisy slurp from his cup.

"Caf, Your Highnessness, is good for when you need to stay up all night doing repairs on the hunk of junk you have the honour of calling your ship. Tea is for- well, just about every other occasion, really."

She raised an eyebrow at him and reclined her head on the edge of the ramp, the motion making her wince. One of her hands instinctively went up to grasp at her skull.

He flawlessly arched a brow back, though probably not for the same reason.

"Tell me, princess-" He set his cup down and placed the novel, still open, page-down on the floor.

Han got up then, wobbling only slightly on his bad leg as he loomed over her at his full height, expression pulled tight in poorly hidden concern. 

"-what exactly wouldn't you do for a good, strong cup of tea?"

* * *

Walking into the Falcon after so long was like taking a much needed breath of fresh air.

Han sat her down at the kitchen table and she watched as he poured tea from a kettle into a mug.

"Here you go, Princess. A good, strong cup of tea. Not Alderaanian though, I'm afraid."

"That's quite alright. This will have to suffice, I suppose."

He placed the mug before her and she wrapped her hands around it. The warmth emanated from her fingertips and spread throughout the rest of her body.

Leia felt her mouth beginning to water only slightly as she stared down into the dark liquid, willing her stomach not to growl.

How long had it been since she’d properly eaten something? In vain, she tried to remember. She usually had the occasional ration bar on her, but that was about it. The other day she went down to mess with Luke after a particularly successful run and… had a sandwich, she believed? Was that it?

"Do you ever stop thinking, Princess?" Han slid into the seat in front of her, looking down into his novel. “Cream? Sugar?”

Of course this man that she had known for three years had picked up on enough of the less subtle of her cues to be able to identify them on sight. She remembered how he was unable to do the same with Luke, and wondered why. He'd spent equal amounts of time with them both, and was equally close with him. Was Luke just better at masking his emotions than her? No, she had been trained to effectively do that. But if not that, then…

She took a careful sip from the mug to avoid answering. She was surprised at how good it was, even without any of the additives, and tried not to appear too greedy as she took another carefully controlled sip. She could not stop the sigh of relief that escaped her lips as her headache began to cease almost immediately.

“Both, please.” She set the mug down. “Just a dash of cream and one sugar. I can do it.”

“‘S no problem.” 

He was already reaching for the pot of sugar and jug of cream. And did they match his cup? She blinked, and squinted at the cup on the opposite end of the table. They _did_. Gods above, Han Solo had a fancy tea set that he seemed to use regularly, judging by the faded flowers painted onto the china and the chip on the rim of his cup.

Leia hid a snicker and idly pondered whether or not she should ask him where he got such a lovely tea set.

He splashed a dash of the creamy liquid into the cup and Leia watched the two liquids swirl together, the clear liquid murkying in a way she had always found beautiful. He plucked a cube of sugar from a pot on the counter and dropped it into the cup with a _plunk_. She stirred it in with her pinky as she tried to read his expression.

"What're you reading?" she asked out of plain curiosity. He bristled.

"Not much, just a, uh, repair manual. Yeah, a repair manual. You know we ran into some trouble the other week, huge… huge trouble with some uh, you know, bounty hunters, and the Falcon's already in pretty bad shape, but you know taking all that blaster fire isn’t good for any ship and it just hasn't been the same since, and even though I, uh, told him ‘don’t you go trying to pick up any damn repair manuals, we can fix it just fine ourselves,’ but you know Chewie, he picked this up on a run the other day anyway, so I thought-"

She ignored his unconvincing rambling, leaned over, and snatched the manual from his slack fingers. He let out a yelp and leapt up from his seat.

"Hey- give that back!" he demanded, but she had already identified the title and skimmed the blurb.

"Isn't this classic literature?"

He made a grab for the book.

"No."

"Oh yes, I remember reading this one at school back when I was… 15, maybe 16… doesn't it feature, majorly, themes of romance and the tragedies it brings?"

_How fitting._

Han finally succeeded in stealing the book back, looking extremely disgruntled.

"Can't let a man preserve the little bit of dignity he has left," he grumbled, and Leia felt only a little bit sorry.

"You've changed," she said softly. "But if it helps, I think reading classic literature is respectable on some standard."

He eyed her, hazel depths no longer annoyed and now dancing with mirth.

"On some standard." His lips twitched.

She felt something tugging at her heartstrings. They were both turning a blind eye to the elephant in the room that was their last confrontation and so far succeeding very well at it.

"Yes." She paused. “ _Especially_ those that feature themes of romance.”

His eyes twinkled, and whatever he was going to say after that was lost when she heard heavy footfalls and caught a flash of brown fur.

"[Cub, are you alright? I thought I heard yelling-"] 

Chewie saw her and stopped, frozen, as he goggled at her.

" _Chewie_!" The initial shock now worn off, her voice rose to something short of a shriek as Chewie rumbled, "[Little One!]", both of their pitches equally delighted.

Classic literature forgotten, she pushed back from the table and ran to the Wookiee, tripping over herself in her haste

She threw her arms around him as he swept her up in his own, effectively lifting her from the ground in a furry embrace.

"Oh, you big walking carpet, how I've missed you!"

"[And I you, Little One.]" Chewie set her down then and looked at Han accusingly. "[Cub, you didn't tell me we were having company!]"

"Well, I wasn't planning on it!" Han defended. "Her Worship jumped me while I was winding down with my cuppa and my book. She’d got this headache that she's not letting on about, so I made her tea. I'm not entirely barbaric."

Leia made an indignant noise of protest as Chewie snorted and rumbled something unintelligible to her. Han turned red.

"[I wouldn't be surprised if your headache were almost entirely gone by now. Cub makes a fine cup of tea. I often ask for one myself when I'm feeling under the weather.]"

There was some undertone in his dialect that was almost teasing, as if there were some inside joke between the two of them that she couldn't understand.

Leia decided to change the subject.

"Chewie, correct me if I'm wrong, but you called me Little One?"

The Wookiee regarded her with playful eyes and growled affirmatively.

"Is it like a nickname?"

"[More or less, Little One. Wookiees give nicknames of sorts to those they are particularly fond of."]

"And you chose… _Little One_?"

"[Yes, because that's what you are. A little one.]" Chewie patted her head affectionately and Leia didn't have the energy to act offended.

"So I'm guessing Han's nickname is Cub, then?" she asked, pressing her lips together in a straight line so as not to laugh.

"[Yes, because that's what he is. A cub. Immature, temperamental, rowdy, not to mention _stubborn_.]”

“Am not!”

Chewie gave Leia an unimpressed look. 

“[Alright, then. I take it you’ve read the repair manual I picked up last week from those craftsmen on Nar Shaddaa? Because my door has been making this awfully suspicious clicking noise every time I try to close it-]”

“Wh- _no_ , what kind of a question is that? You can’t trust those damn Nar Shaddaans, there’s a _reason_ that gods-forsaken planet is nicknamed the Smuggler’s Moon! You’re bound to get duped or robbed blind. Besides, you’re as much of an engineer as I am, fix it yourself! What do I look like, your personal handyman? You probably crossed a couple of wires last time you were tinkering around in there or something.”

“[We are many things. We are _not_ , however, engineers. If we were, we would have fixed this poor girl up for good a long, long time ago.]” 

“We’re basically engineers at this point,” he insisted.

“[If we were engineers, we wouldn’t have to smuggle spice to earn our keep.]” Chewie rolled his eyes.

“Maybe we should start taking repair jobs instead of smuggling jobs, then!”

“[From glorified drug dealers to glorified handymen. Alright, then, what about the kitchen sink? I’m positive something in that manual could help-]”

“I’d sooner ask Goldenrod what was wrong with the damn sink,” he huffed.

“[ _Cub,_ it’s been two weeks since the kitchen sink broke and I’m tired of washing the dishes in the fresher,]” Chewie said with a poorly hidden self-satisfaction.

“And our dishes have never been cleaner!” Han exclaimed, before he deflated. “Alright fine, fine, I get where the damn nickname comes from. You win. Go away.”

A small giggle escaped Leia’s lips despite her best efforts, and Han glared at her.

"Laugh it up, Your Highness," he muttered, but he was smiling. "Sorry if we woke you up, buddy."

"[No matter. I'll leave you two to it, then. I will see you in the morning, Little One. We have much catching up to do.]” 

Leia agreed. Chewie ambled off, and she heard the buzzing of a movie being hologrammed. 

“Don’t feel bad,” Han said as if he could read her mind. “His sleeping pattern is fucked anyways.”

She took another sip of her tea, a knot of tension tying itself in her gut.

“So-”

“[ _Cub_! How many times have I told you not to leave your glasses lying around?]” Chewie growled from the room over.

Leia shot him a wide-eyed look.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” he said in an obviously alarmed tone.

Chewie appeared in the doorframe once more and tossed something in Han’s direction. A pair of glasses landed on the table, skittering a couple of inches before stopping.

“[You’d think he’d be more careful with those, considering they’re what saved his eyesight after the accident,]” Chewie said to her.

“ _Accident_?” She looked to him, and he glowered at Chewie.

“[You didn’t tell her about the accident?]” the Wookiee asked in astonishment.

“Thank you, _Chewie_ ,” he said sharply, snatching the glasses off the table. “Ain’t you got other things to be doing? Other places to be? You know, literally anywhere else than here?”

Chewie got the hint. With an air of disdain he left, but not before seeing to it that Han stashed the glasses safely away in his pocket.

“What accident?” she repeated after Chewie had gone.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It was about twenty or so months back. We needed to keep on the down-low even though we had managed to pay Jabba off partially, because I still owed him a lot and so I still had a price on my head. I got these-” he tapped his pocket- “to wear as a part of a disguise when I had to attend to some shady business with my old friend Lando, and lo and behold, I found out later that they actually improved my eyesight. But anyways, I guess the disguise wouldn't have helped anyway, because Lando was apparently being threatened and blacklisted by this group of bounty hunters with ‘influence’ who told him they’d storm Cloud City if he didn’t comply. Told me they arrived just before I did. And, well, I was outnumbered, and they had more than a few tricks up their sleeves. Including grenades, and, later, a carbon freeze chamber.”

“You were put into carbon freeze?”

“Hey, at least it sped up the healing process from the grenades.” He gestured to his face. “The way Chewie tells it, Lando went back to the Falcon after they carted me off and told Chewie exactly what happened. After he convinced Chewie not to strangle him on the spot, over the course of the next four or five months they continued taking jobs and making payments to Jabba while slowly taking out the bounty hunters who’d threatened Lando. After all of them were dead, they infiltrated Jabba’s palace, Lando busted me out of the carbonite, we escaped after some trial and error and kept a low profile, taking remote jobs for a couple of months until we’d paid off half of our debt. That calmed down Jabba some, and for an extra ten percent he was willing to overlook the, uh, _altercation_ we’d had. And we just gave the last payment around three weeks ago. Dropped Lando back off at Cloud City, shook hands, promised to visit soon… and we were enjoying cruising the galaxy and taking jobs as free beings until we bumped into you guys. But, yeah. The carbon wouldn’t have helped my eyesight if not for those glasses,” he finished.

“That’s… wow,” she said lamely, not knowing what to project in her tone at all. Astoundment? Pity? Wonder?

“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Pity they couldn’t save the rest of it, eh, Princess?”

“Pardon me?”

“Don’t act so shocked. What did you and the kid say exactly? _Ah_.” He snapped his fingers, lips twisting into a wry smile. “Deformed. No, wait- _gently maimed._ That was it. And how could I forget _not easy to look at._ ”

Leia stiffened. “How do you-”

“Rieekan asked me to see if you were in your quarters. Needed to talk to you about something or the other. Got there just in time to hear that lovely sentiment. Didn’t know I was considered such ripe gossip among the folks here. Particularly you and the kid. Especially you and the kid. Never struck me as the gossiping type, but I’ve been wrong before.”

“Well, Captain, did you stick around long enough to hear what I said next? Or did you slink away the second you heard something about yourself that, admittedly, was unkind?” she asked, anger in her words, but not for her embarrassment at being overheard.

His face didn’t change. “Enlighten me, Your Worship.”

“I told him that I wished I could have stopped you from going that day and prevented anything from happening to you in the first place.”

He looked startled.

 _Are you going to find him and set things right_?

Well, she’d already found him without meaning to. That was half of the job done. Setting things right, on the other hand, would be much more difficult for the both of them. But this was a prime opportunity to try, wasn't it?

She glanced at Han, sitting across from her, mouth now fixed tight into an unreadable line, defense in his fingers, curled so carefully around his cup, held in front of him like a talisman, as if that alone would be enough to ward her off. 

His intent was clear- he knew it wasn't, but damn if that was going to stop him from trying.

 _He’s scared too_ , she thought, and tidbits of her conversation with Luke bounced around in her head.

Han Solo was in front of her, scarred face and busted leg and all, and she thought him beautiful for it.

"And you know what else I told him?" she continued, making an effort to sound less harsh. "I told him how much I missed you, how much I hated you for leaving, what a mistake I made the day you left by leaving things off the way they did. And-" 

She swallowed, bravado suddenly weakening.

"-And I told him that… I loved you."

Han blinked slowly. 

"That I can believe. Bet the kid's heard that from you more than once. Witnessed it myself in the hangar not a few hours ago."

"Oh, you-" she began, frustrated, but he spoke over her.

"Listen, your Highness, I don't know if that damn fool kid dumped you or what, but I'm not here to be your rebound, something damn foolish I said myself when I wasn't thinking properly be damned itself!"

Leia could have hit him. Was that the kind of person he took her for? It honestly hurt a little, but she forced herself to keep her temper in check.

"What? I heard it. I’ve seen it. The sneaking off together, the 'I love you's- what kind of an idiot do you take me for?"

"A really stupid one, considering those are the kind of activites long lost twin siblings tend to partake in together."

The look on his face when the sentence registered with him was like an Alderaanian dawn.

"What?"

"Luke is my twin brother. We were separated at birth. Excuse us if we tend to be all but attached at the hip, also considering that neither of us have any family left at all!”

Well, at least, no family left that she’d like to acknowledge.

“Wait… so you…” He furrowed his brows and creases formed inbetween them. Then he leaned back in his chair, a tiny smile on his lips.

"What is it?"

"Well, for one- and don’t go you using this against me, now- I feel ashamed,” he confessed. “Things make a lot more sense now. It's weird. I haven't felt ashamed in a really, _really_ long time. One of the only times I can recall is when the kid guilted me for leaving right before he went and blew up the Death Star. I think this might top that, though."

He tilted his head forward again, and looked at her. She got the sudden impression that he felt incredibly vulnerable in front of her.

"The last two years, every day… it was like the ninth circle of hell. There wasn't a day gone by that I wasn't going crazy with the weight of what I'd done before I left, that it didn't sit so fucking heavy on my mind. What kind of a man does that to someone? Guilts them, yells at them, shuts down on them- _leaves_ like that."

"I agree with you. Goodbyes shouldn't be angry or vengeful. Maybe a little sorrowful." She took another sip of her tea but barely tasted it. "And usually there's hope of seeing each other again, in a better time. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get that from that goodbye. Goodbyes are substitutions for ‘until next time,’ except when both parties know for a fact that it is _truly_ a goodbye."

Han looked down at the table.

"You truly have no idea… how much you _hurt_ me that day. And I know I'm not innocent. I was on the giving and receiving end, just like you were. But it still hurt either way. I chased after your stupid ship and barged into Carlist's office like a mad thing, begging him to page you. And you ignored it."

"I didn't have anything to say."

"Did you ever consider that maybe I did? That it was so important for me to have said it so that maybe I could have breathed a little easier for letting the past two years go by, even knowing things left off the way they did?"

His eyes were wet when he finally looked at her.

"No," he said quietly. "No, I didn't."

Even after all that time and pain, she still hated seeing Han cry, and she hated being the cause of it even more.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said, and his words teetered dangerously on his tongue. 

"I'm sorry too."

He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes jumping from the tea in front of her to the corner of the wall to the exit.

"Did you, uh… did you mean it? What you said you told the kid, I mean."

"Too much, I think. I only ever acknowledged it a few times, and two of those times were today. Did you mean it?"

"More than you'll ever know, sweetheart. More than you'll ever know," he said hoarsely, as if something was catching in his words.

She studied him, unsure of what either of them were doing right now. They seemed so connected yet so lost from each other.

"What is it?"

"You have… no idea how badly I…" He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. 

"How badly you what?" 

"Nothing. Forget it." He downed the rest of his cup and got up, setting it in the sink. “CHEWIE! You’re washing these, got it?”

An annoyed growl came from the living room.

“[If you don’t fix the kitchen sink I’m going on strike, Cub! Your starblossom dish soap does not belong next to my toothbrush!]”

“Damn you, I’ll do it tomorrow!” he shouted back. Then he turned to look at her, grumbling. “Sorry about that. _Wookiees_.”

"Han. Tell me.” 

His eyes bore into hers like an unspoken dare. He didn’t break the stare when he spoke next.

"You have no idea how badly I want to kiss you right now." 

"Then do it." 

Now _this_ was a dare, and she said it out loud, like it were only that and not at all matter of how he was looking at her like she had all the stars in the galaxy in her eyes.

He shook his head slowly.

"Now's not the right time."

"It's as good a time as any. Do it. Be selfish."

He looked at her with amused confusion.

"You're a selfish man, right? And you've always wanted what you couldn't have?”

Leia got up and rounded the table, willing her palms not to sweat. She sat next to him and took his arm, wrapping it around her waist. She nestled into his side like they would have done in their sleep, like she'd never admit to dreaming of doing while awake. She pulled her legs up and looked up at him, the closeness almost as intoxicating as the Rogues’ alcohol.

"I'm telling you that you can have this, if you want. You can have this because I _want_ you to have it. You just have to take it first. Go on."

She could feel his breath on her face, and the strangely comforting combination of mint and tea surrounded her just as his arms did.

Leia pulled back and jutted her chin out.

"Or are you not as selfish as I thought you were?"

"I'll show you selfish," he murmured.

There was nothing harsh or taking or selfish behind the kiss. His lips were strangely soft against her own chapped ones, and one of his hands snaked around her body and pulled her closer to him. The other went up to cradle the back of her head.

She held his face in both of her hands even as they broke apart, breathless.

"The gangway of this ship is always down for you, princess," he said into her skin, and she understood the invitation more than well enough.

He insisted on carrying her back to his cabin, bridal style. They bumped into way too many walls on the way there, but the throbbing in her shoulder was a small price to pay for this

He set her down onto his bed, and she propped herself up against the pillows as she tried to kick off her boots.

"Ah, ah- allow me, your Highness," and the tone of the words felt right, but not right enough.

He worked on the laces, then the buckles, albeit with some difficulty. When he went to the fresher, she went to carefully place them by the door.

Han emerged a minute later dressed in sleep clothing, and she remembered suddenly that she had brought none of her own.

When she voiced this concern, he shrugged. 

"Take some of mine, then. I mean, it's not high fashion or whatever, but-"

“Are you sure that's okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because… because… well, it’s your clothing!” she burst out. “And me wearing it-”

“Would be quite a sight.” He winked, then his demeanor turned serious. “But I get it if you really don’t want to. How far are your quarters?”

“Just this once,” she mumbled, feeling the colour rising in her cheeks as if they were discussing something scandalous.

She justified the walk to his closet with the notion that wearing sweatpants with drawstrings to sleep would hamper her circulation, and that this was a much more practical alternative.

“Take whatever you need.” He leaned against the wall, next to her, watching as she scrutinized her options.

Leia reached in and pulled out a shirt that she had seen him wearing many, many times before.

“Call me a sap, sweetheart, but you’d look lovely in that shirt. I believe it's the one that the kid puked all over when he got flight sickness?”

She made a face. “Didn’t stop you from wearing it.”

Leia remembered that day. Luke had contracted a particularly ugly case of flight sickness and spent the night puking his guts out. Han had been the first victim. Immediately after being assailed by Luke’s untimely regurgitations, he had ditched the shirt altogether and carried him to the med bay, seeing as he was too dizzy to even walk straight at that point. Then he had surrendered the piloting to Chewie and stayed with Luke all night, insisting that he knew best how to handle flight sickness. He must have, because Luke woke up the next morning claiming it was like he’d never been sick at all.

“I guess you don’t ever stop thinking.”

“Not really.”

“Well, what’re you thinking about then?”

“When Luke threw up all over your shirt and you took it off altogether, carried him to the med bay, and nursed him back to health.”

“I wouldn’t say _nursed him_ -”

“You did, though. I remember I had to bring you a replacement shirt because Chewie was piloting.”

“And you liked what you saw, if I remember correctly.”

“I did _not_. I wasn't and am not fazed by bare skin.”

“Whatever you say. If it’ll make you laugh, and I have a feeling it will, the kid told me through his delirium that I had the quote unquote 'rocking bod' to make a decent stripper if I ever got tired of smuggling. Then he told me to put a shirt on because you were walking around the ship, and passed out."

“Sounds about right.” Leia let out a giggle in spite of herself.

She found herself relaxing as she continued to look through his closet for a pair of sleep pants.

“This is horribly organized. Do you even have a system?”

“Not really. I just throw the laundry in when it’s done.”

“Sickening.”

“I call it efficiency.”

"This actually isn’t so bad, apart from the lack of organization. Your clothes are clean, not too wrinkled, and big. I could live with this.”

She tugged a long pair of pants that were made out of a stiff but soft material that felt smooth against her hands off the shelf.

"Don’t get any ideas. I said you could borrow one set of sleep clothing, not leave me without a shirt on my back!"

"Yes, I like this a lot. Don’t worry, I plan on leaving you with plenty, but I also plan on leaving with plenty,” she said with finality.

"This is a damn robbery. Is that what all that was about? Was it all just a ploy to get into my closet?"

"I've been found out," she laughed, hugging the bundle of clothing to her chest as she shut the fresher door behind her. 

She changed, taking her time for no other reason than she could. Maybe she should have hurried, but she needed a moment to reflect.

 _Papa_ , she thought, _this might not be respectable behavior for a princess. Wearing a smuggler’s clothes, sleeping in his bed, kissing him- but he’s_ good _. He’s not Luke, in that doesn’t come easily to him, but he_ is _. And once he realizes it, he_ chooses _it. That kind of behavior to me is worth that of all the 'respectable' men in the universe. I think you would have liked him, Papa, he’s so much more like you than you could ever know. I hope you approve, but truth be told… I would have him either way, regardless of whether or not you gave the okay. Be happy for us, Papa. I love you and I miss you, now and always._

She stepped out, and he was waiting for her. 

“You're lucky that I-" he began, and stopped, gaping.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” she said playfully, and he pulled out his datapad.

“Well, if you insist.”

“Wait-”

The shutter clicked and he smiled at the screen in a way she would later describe to him as dopey.

“You are a scoundrel, Han Solo,” she said with mock disdain as she walked to his bedside and fluffed up the pillow there.

“True.”

"A scoundrel who drinks tea from a fancy tea set, reads classic literature, and wears glasses.”

He coughed. “ _Reading_ glasses.”

“That’s even better.”

His ears became tinged with pink. 

“If you want me to take the sofa or something-”

“I thought we were past that," she said as she climbed into his bed.

“It’s courtesy, sweetheart."

“Shut up and get in bed with me.”

He obliged, hitting the lights first, then pulling back the sheets and sinking down onto the bed next to her. She settled against him comfortably. He put an arm around her shoulders, his fingers splaying across the small of her back.

In the dim lighting, she focused on the scar that lay hidden beneath his shirt.

“Show me.”

“Hm?”

“The rest of it.” She put her hand over the scar and he sighed.

“It’s not as handsome as the rest of me, I’m afraid," he said tragically, and she poked him in the ribs.

“I'll be used to it already, then."

He harrumphed and kissed her forehead gently, the curve of a half-smile on his lips, and reached down to the hem of his shirt. He tugged it upwards, half off, exposing the bare skin of his chest. She could see the outline of the angry discolouration. It covered the upper right of his right pec and rippled down his abdomen. His shoulder had taken the brunt of the impact, the flesh there completely roughened from the scar.

She stared for a moment. The fabric of his shirt rustled as he pulled it back down.

A silent moment passed before she whispered, "I love this too."

His breathing was quiet and slow.

“Say that again,” he said.

“Say what?” she asked, feigning innocence.

“You know what. Tell me. Say it again.”

“I love you.”

Han hitched a breath, and she continued.

“All of you. Every imperfection, every scar, everything you think is unlovable. And, if you want to make it happen that way, I have the capacity to always.”

“I’m not leaving, if that's what you're afraid of. I signed a contract with the Alliance. You're going to wish you could get rid of me soon, sweetheart, just you wait," he said with a lopsided grin, the white of his teeth easily visible in the darkness.

“I have no doubt I will, and then you'll go and do something stupid and almost die and I'll be reminded why I need to keep you tied to a chair in a locked room to make sure you stay out of trouble." She pulled the blanket farther around her shoulders.

"Sounds sexy,” he said in a fake seductive voice, and Leia groaned.

"Gods, you're worse than Luke. Do you know that I told him we were sleeping together and he thought we were having sex?"

"That's just ridiculous. Everybody knows Rieekan would come in here and kick my ass if word got around that I was defiling you." Han shuddered.

"Carlist is twenty years older than you and actually _likes_ you. He would never."

"Yeah, but he likes you _more_. You ever wondered why nobody on Base has tried to make moves on you? Because Rieekan is standing over their heads with a metal bat, ready to bash in the first asshole who mistreats you."

"He was very close friends with my father," she mused. "It would make sense… but can we please stop talking about Carlist in bed?"

"Right, right. What were we talking about before?"

"No more running?” she supplied.

“No more running," he affirmed. "But it’s a two way street now, alright?”

"Of course it is."

They lay there like that for a while. She ran her hand through his hair, smoothing it back from his face and combing it with her fingers. He kissed her lazily every now and then, and fell asleep for the first time in days, feeling safe.

* * *

Leia woke up screaming. 

She was drenched in cold sweat, bunching up the sheets in her fists. She didn’t dare blink for fear of seeing Alderaan burning behind her eyes. 

_Mama, Papa_ -

She gasped, taking in great, heaving breaths, and someone stirred beside her. Arms closed around her and her fight or flight instinct kicked in. Leia flailed, succeeding in striking the person in the face. She tumbled out of the bed in a tangle of sheets and looked around frantically for a door.

Where was she? Why wasn't she in her own bed? What in hells was going on?

Someone swore loudly and the lights flickered on. Leia shielded her eyes against the sudden light.

“Hey, hey- sweetheart, it’s okay, you’re safe. You’re here, with me, on the Falcon. You’re _safe_ , I promise you. Leia, calm down. It’s me. You know who I am, right?” 

She shook the bedclothes off her arms and stood up, quivering. Someone stood before her, and she blinked hard as her eyes adjusted to the light. She knew him. 

Hesitantly, she said in a quavering voice, “Han?”

“That’s right, sweetheart. You’re with me, and you’re safe, and you’ll stay safe as long as I’m here,” he said, like he was talking to a scared animal. “Come here.”

She stumbled forward and he caught her in his arms, enveloping her in a blanket as he pulled her close to him.

“Oh gods, I _hit_ you,” she said suddenly, remembering. “Gods, are you alright?”

“ _I’m_ fine, sweetheart. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you pack a punch. But it’s not me we’ve got to be worrying about right now, is it? What happened?”

“Vader,” she croaked. “The Tantive IV. The interrogation- it was like fire… like you’re on fire… and I saw- I saw…”

Han shushed her gently as tears trickled down her cheeks. 

“You’re safe here,” he repeated.

“I saw Alderaan… I k-keep seeing it- it’s _gone_ … I haven’t slept- I haven’t slept in _days,_ alright, I d-don't want to see it anymore-”

He pushed her hair out of her forehead and kissed her hand. Leia closed her eyes and tried to ground herself by listening to his heartbeat, strong and staunch and _there._

"What were those lullabies?" she asked after a bit of time had passed, and she trusted herself to speak coherently.

"Hm?"

"You used to sing to me. In Corellian. What did it mean? I'm afraid I'm n-not fluent."

He cleared his throat and rolled over. She hugged him from behind.

"They were the ones I remembered from when I was a kid. My ma… she had the most beautiful singing voice in the world. And whenever I couldn't sleep, she would sing to me. 'Fraid it's one of the only things I remember about her, though." He sounded wistful, and a little sad.

So he held onto his mother's voice while Leia held onto her mother's laughter.

“Sing to me,” she requested.

“I’m a little rusty, sweetheart,” he said amiably.

“Doesn’t matter. Sing.”

He did. His voice was like liquid gold, like morning birdsong. His deep alto carried all the richness of her mother’s laughter and all the steadiness of her father’s hands. It sounded like home, and she found herself drifting off as his fingers brushed away any tears that hadn’t yet dried.

“I imagine you sound like your mother did,” she mumbled sleepily. 

“You flatter me, Your Worship.”

"I don't want you to call me that anymore.”

"What do you want me to call you, then?" He yawned.

"Leia.” She stopped, choosing her next words carefully. “But if there's an issue with that then yours will do just fine."

Han Solo blushing was a lovely sight to behold.

"Mine, eh?"

"Don't get too many ideas. We both know who's in charge here."

He nodded sagely. "Threepio."

He narrowly avoided having a pillow thrown in his face by rolling over just in the nick of time.

“I still have rights to sweetheart, though. I refuse to give that one up,” he told her.

“I have to call you something too, then.”

“Alright, sweetheart, what’ll it be?” he said, obviously humouring her.

“I’ll figure it out in the morning. And you’d better have the sink fixed by tonight. I’m not doing the dishes in the fresher.”

“That’s Chewie’s job, though.”

“We take turns, remember? Since you do the cooking."

"Do I ever. Nobody washes dishes quite like you do, Princess. And speaking of cooking, when was the last time you've eaten something?"

Leia opened her mouth, ready to respond.

"And ration bars don't count!" he added quickly.

She closed her mouth.

"I have half a mind to get up and make you something right now, just so you don't starve," he grumbled. "I just might, too."

She knew he meant it. "Don't. Do that tomorrow morning? It's too late right now and, frankly, I'm exhausted. And you are too, even if you're hiding it."

"Alright, Leia. Tomorrow I'm going to whip up anything you want. Anything at all. As long as you eat it." 

"It's a deal," she agreed.

"I have no clean dishes, anyway," he mumbled under his breath. "You sure you just don't want to make Chewie do it? He doesn't mind."

"I don't care if he doesn't mind. We. Take. Turns. Besides, I have two years of lost time make up for.”

“Indeed we do, Leia,” he said, eyelids fluttering shut, and she realized he wasn't talking about dishes as he took her hand underneath the blankets. “Indeed we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this took me like two months and my brain hurts from finishing this but im so glad i did! it was originally supposed to be a one shot and then wowow i check the wordcounter and ?? 25k+? shit happens ig  
> i tried to come up with a thought process for leia just like i have with han, and decided that i would write her as overly analytic, trying to read into every tone and microaggression and action just like she was trained to as a diplomat, and her mind runs at a mile a minute even when she doesnt want it to. shes always thinking, always in diplomat/general/senator mode whether she realizes it or not. i hope i conveyed this well! concrit is welcome!


End file.
